LIBRARY 

\  OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 

Deceived         \^\      Q    ]  393     .  189 
^Accessions  No.HQQoct     .  Class  No. 


o     i«y^     •  '^v 

1   '" 


FKOBEL'S 
SYSTEM    OF    EDUCATION 


THE 


KINDER-GARTEN: 

rrf  JrirhFa  jugate 


AND  THEIR  BEARING  ON 

THE  EDUCATION   OF  WOMEN 

ALSO 

REMARKS   ON   THE 

HIGHER   EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN 

BY 

EMILY  SUIIUIEFF, 

AUTHOR   OF   "  INTELLECTUAL   EDUCATION   OS1   WOMEN." 


SYRACUSE,   N.Y.: 
C.    W.    BARDEEN,    PUBLISHER. 

LONDON:   SWAN   SONfrENSCHEIN   &  CO 
1889. 


PRINTED   BY 

HAZELL,   WATSON,  AND  VINEY,  LD., 
LONDON  AND  AYLESBURY. 


CONTENTS 


Preface vii 

FROBEL'S  SYSTEM  OP  EDUCATION — 

Sect.   I.  General  Training  for  Little  Children        .         .       1 
IL  Frbbel's  Gifts 7 

III.  do.         (continued)          .         .         •         .17 

IV.  Principles  of  Frobel's  System          ...     26 
V.  Frobel's  System  in  relation  to  Ordinary  Schools     36 

VI.  Frbbel's    System    in   relation    to    Industrial 

Training  and  the  Life  of  the  People    .         .43 
VII.  Frobel's  Appeal  to  Women     .         .         .         .52 

REMARKS  ON  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN  .        .65 
Explanation  of  term  "  Higher  Education"    .         .         .65 

Essential  Studies — 

Physiology       .         .         .         .         .         ,         .68 

Nursing  and  General  Care  of  Health  .         .         .70 
Mental  Philosophy  and  Application  to  Education     76 
Social  Economy         ......     85 

Charities — Influence  on  Politics         .  .87 

Subjects  open  to  choice — 

Literature 94 

History 95 

Science 96 

APPENDIX                                                     .        .        .  100 


PREFACE 


short  papers  here  given  to  the  public  were 
originally  published  in  the  "Women's  Education 
Journal "  in  two  distinct  series,  which  are  now  re- 
printed together,  because  they  bear  ultimately  upon 
the  same  important  subject — the  duty  laid  upon 
women  to  fit  themselves  to  be  the  educators  of  the 
race.  It  were  vain  to  lay  down  the  Kinder-garten 
System,  if  women  are  not  ready  to  practice  it ;  the 
philosophy  of  Frobel  must  remain  a  dead  letter  as 
regards  all  practical  influence  on  society,  if  women 
are  not  capable  of  understanding  and  acting  upon  its 
principles.  The  Kinder-garten  System  presents  itself, 
therefore,  to  those  who  are  anxious  to  forward  the 
education  of  women  under  an  aspect  of  twofold  im- 
portance— that  which  it  ostensibly  claims  as  a  means 
of  developing  childish  faculty,  and  that  which  it  indi- 
rectly possesses  by  its  imperative  claim  on  the  exercise 
of  the  highest  faculties  in  women.  Family  life,  few 
will  deny,  is  the  centre  of  national  welfare;  and  Nature 
herself  has  placed  women  as  the  central  power  of 
family  life.  Any  wide,  moral,  and  intellectual  reform 
must  then  begin  here.  We  touch  the  surface  only  by 
all  educational  labour  that  leaves  out  of  sight  the  asso- 


Viii  PREFACE 

ciations  of  home,  and  these  are  moulded  by  women. 
"NYe  touch  one  side  of  human  nature  only,  and  that 
which  least  effects  the  will,  and  therefore  least  concerns 
action,  when  we  stimulate  the  intellect,  and  make  no 
appeal  to  the  heart  or  the  imagination ;  and  this  wide 
region,  too  much  neglected  by  educators,  is  that  where- 
in women  exercise  their  most  powerful  sway.  The 
latter  will  be  one-sided  also,  and  therefore  more  or 
less  fraught  with  danger,  till  moral,  intellectual,  and 
aesthetic  culture,  proceeding  hand  in  hand,  have  re- 
stored the  due  balance  in  the  feminine  mind.  Har- 
monious development  is  what  the  welfare  of  society 
as  of  the  individual  demands,  but  society  cannot  attain 
this  advantage  until  the  effects  of  the  long  neglect  of 
women's  mental  capacity  has  been  recognised  and 
remedied. 

The  more  direct  importance  of  the  Kinder-garten  as 
training  young  children,  is  better  appreciated  than  its 
influence  over  the  education  of  women ;  yet  even  this 
is  v^ry  imperfectly  reno^nised,  it  is  too  generally  an 
ignorant  and  half  mistaken  view  that  is  taken  of  its 
value.  It  is  very  commonly  considered  as  a  system 
of  mere  childish  amusements,  or  means  of  keeping 
troublesome  little  hands  and  feet  quiet;  or,  at  best, 
as  a  way  of  teaching  something,  before  the  children 
are  old  enough  to  learn  to  read.  Its  intrinsic  value 
as  the  most  philosophical  system  of  real  education^rhat 
is,  of  drawing  out  the  faculties  of  the  child,  of  following 


PREFACE  IX 

step  by  step  Nature's  own  order  of  development,  and 
step  by  step  also  cultivating  the  use  of  all  the  instru- 
ments by  which  knowledge  shall  hereafter  be  gained, 
and  active  life  be  directed— this,  the  great  power  of 
Frobel's  method,  is  as  yet  apprehended  by  few  in 
England ;  and  it  is  for  this  reason  that  in  the  following 
papers  I  have  sought  to  dwell  more  on  principles  than 
on  practice.  I  am  well  aware  that  of  the  many  imper- 
fections of  this  little  book,  the  most  imperfect  part  is 
that  relating  to  the  various  games  and  exercises.  It  is 
so  impossible  to  make  this  really  good  without  illustra- 
tions, that  I  have  attempted  no  more  than  what  was 
necessary  to  make  principles  intelligible. 

Next  to  my  desire  to  bring  out  the  theory  of  Frobel's 
method,  has  been  that  of  showing  how  this  early  train- 
ing can  be  carried  on  gradually  to  the  ordinary  book 
learning  of  later  schools,  and  what  influence  it  will 
have  on  the  pupil's  aptitude  for  the  latter.  Especially 
would  I  dwell  upon  the  fact  of  the  valuable  amount  of 
school  time  saved  by  the  early  training  of  the  pupil's 
faculties  in  the  right  diiection,  the  difference  it  must 
make  to  corne  to  work  with  working  habits  ready 
formed,  with  senses  and  hands  trained  to  accuracy  and 
delicacy;  instead  of  coming,  as  children  usually  do, 
with  some  small  scraps  of  book  learning  acquired  by 
rote,  but  without  the  least  idea  of  exercising  their  own 
intelligence.  What  is  required  is  to  rouse  mothers  to 
the  importance  of  giving  this  preparation,  and  gradu- 

b 


X  PREFACE 

ally  to  urge  schools  to  exact  it.  Teachers  will  probably 
not  be  slow  to  do  so  when  once  they  have  recognised 
the  assistance  thus  given  to  their  own  labour.  The 
commonest  complaint  from  all  schools  is  of  the  state  of 
unfitness  in  which  the  children  are  sent  to  them.  One 
of  the  most  constant  arguments  used  in  favour  of  better 
education  for  women  has  been  the  schoolmaster's  argu- 
ment, that  if  mothers  could  educate  their  children 
before  school-time,  the  work  of  school  would  be  very 
different  from  what  it  is. 

The  additions  made  to  the  sections  on  Higher  Edu- 
cation for  Women  are  considerable,  because  the  ex- 
tremely narrow  limits  of  the  Journal  at  the  time  they 
were  first  written  had  made  brevity  a  principal  con- 
sideration. An  outline  only  of  the  subject  can  be  pre- 
sented even  here,  but  I  have  endeavoured  to  make  it 
somewhat  less  imperfect. 


EMILY  SHIRREFF. 


PREFACE  TO  SECOND  EDITION 


TTTHEN  the  first  edition  of  this  little  work  was  ex- 
hausted, it  became  a  question  whether  it  snould 
be  allowed  to  drop  out  of  print,  or  be  in  a  great  measure 
re- written.  Finally,  I  have  thought  it  best  to  do  neither, 
but  to  republish  it  in  its  original  form,  with  only  a  few 
notes  and  corrections.  My  reasons  for  this  course  are 
that,beingas  regards  the  Kinder-garten,  a  simple  abstract 
of  PRINCIPLES,  these  remain  the  same  under  any  changed 
aspect  of  the  practical  work.  What  is  said  of  them  to- 
day remains  true  for  ever,  and  that  neglect  of  principles, 
that  preference  for  the  superficial  part  of  Kinder-garten 
practice  over  the  theory  of  education,  on  which  it  is 
based,  and  from  which  it  derives  its  value,  is  still  one  of 
the  most  fatal  hindrances  to  progress.  Indeed,  as 
Kinder-gartens  multiply,  it  becomes  even  more  necessary 
to  repeat  that  in  using  Frobel's  gifts,  we  do  nothing,  or 
worse  than  nothing,  unless  we  put  into  each  exercise 
Frobel's  spirit  and  purpose. 

The  second  part  of  the  book,  which  refers  to  women's 
mission  in  connection  with  infant  education,  admits  in 
like  manner  of  little  change,  because  there  also  general 
principles  are  laid  down.  The  reasons  that  make  certain 
studies  valuable  or  imperative  remain  the  same  ;  and  the 
appeal  to  women's  right  feeling  in  the  matter  is  even 
more  pressing  than  before.  For  the  evil  caused  by 
women's  ignorance  of  education,  and  of  so  many  subjects 
that  are  essential  to  the  education,  are  more  felt  in  pro- 


Xll  PREFACE  TO  SECOND  EDITION 

portion  as  Frobel's  System  spreads,  and  we  feel  our  de- 
pendence on  the  assistance  of  mothers,  which  they  are  too 
generally  incapable  of  giving.  Madame  von  MahrenbolU 
speaks  strongly  of  this  deficiency  as  being  the  principal 
cause  of  the  slow  progress  of  the  Kinder-garten  in  Ger- 
many. It  is  essentially  mothers'  work,  because,  however 
good  the  mere  teachers  may  be,  home  co-operation  is 
absolutely  indispensable. 

The  appendix  referring  to  hindrances  in  the  work  of 
the  Frobel  Society  I  have  also  decided  to  leave  as  it  was, 
because,  although  our  position  as  a  Society  is  different 
now  from  what  it  was  when  these  remarks  were  written, 
we  still  have  to  bear  in  mind  many  of  the  same  difficul- 
ties that  met  us  at  first,  and  still  need  to  remember 
that  a  high  standard,  and  united  efforts,  are  the  first  re- 
quisites for  success.  The  Society  has  founded  a  training 
college,  which,  under  the  able  direction  of  Miss  Bishop, 
will,  we  trust,  do  much  to  further  our  progress.  We 
have  persevered  in  the  system  of  independent  examina- 
tions, and  adhere  strongly  to  this  principle  ;  but  what 
we  need  more  than  any  external  measures,  is  the  earnest 
conviction  that  we  are  engaged  in  a  great  work  for 
humanity,  one  calling  for  energy  and  self-devotion, 
and  before  which  all  petty  jealousies  and  separate 
interests  cannot  dare  to  lift  their  heads. 

EMILY  SHIKREFF. 

May  1880. 


UNIVERSITY 


FKOBEL'S  SYSTEM  OF  EDUCATION 


SECTION  I. 

General  Training  for  Little  Children 

THERE  has  for  some  years  been  a  strong  feeling  in  Ger- 
many of  the  need  of  reform  in  their  whole  system  of 
national  Education.  Instruction  had  reached  a  point 
that  was  the  envy  of  other  nations,  but  real  education 
kept  no  pace  with  the  culture  of  the  intellect  alone. 
The  foremost  thinkers  on  this  matter  felt  that  the 
desired  progress  must  be  the  result  of  more  harmonious 
development  of  the  whole  nature,  and  that  to  be  effectual 
it  must  begin  in  early  childhood,  and  be  cared  for  alike 
in  all  classes  of  the  nation.  Accordingly,  the  society 
established  for  the  reform  of  education,  the  Allgemeine 
Erziehungsverein,  has  made  it  the  principal  object  of 
its  exertions  to  spread  Kinder-garten  schools  over  the 
country  and  to  establish  Normal  Schools  for  teachers  of 
the  system.  In  England  a  similar  movement  has  taken 
place.  The  Women's  Education  Union,  by  its  strenuous 
work  of  reform,  has  helped  to  make  the  need  of  better 
early  training  felt ;  and  the  Frobel  Society  founded 
somewhat  later,  and  which  has  been  in  close  connection, 

A 


2  GENERAL  TKAINING  [SEC.  L 

with  the  Union,  has  had  for  its  object  to  promote  that 
early  training  through  the  Kinder-garten  system.  Sucn 
reforms  have  been  found  to  be  very  difficult  in  Germany ; 
but  they  are  still  more  so  in  England,  where  philosophical 
principles  of  education  are  seldom  appealed  to,  where 
every  man  who  has  knowledge  is  supposed  competent  to 
teach,  and  where  teaching  and  educating  are  so  com- 
monly used  as  equivalent  terms,  that  so-called  educa- 
tional discussions  rarely  go  beyond  the  subject-matter 
and  extent  of  knowledge  to  be  imparted  at  a  given  time, 
and  for  a  given  purpose.  One  of  the  many  evil  con- 
sequences of  this  confusion  is  that  several  years  are 
wasted  beyond  recall ;  since  what  is  nominally  called 
education  begins  at  an  age  when  real  education  should 
already  have  been  placed  upon  a  secure  basis.  The  work 
of  the  true  educator  is  to  draw  out  all  the  latent  capa- 
bilities of  the  human  creature,  to  form  habits  and 
associations,  and  to  discipline  the  will;  the  work  of 
ordinary  teachers  begins  only  when  the  will  has  already 
acquired  strength  and  bias,  when  habits  and  associations, 
good  or  bad,  are  already  partly  formed  by  the  mere 
force  of  circumstances,  when  the  mental  faculty  has 
already  been  exercised  in  some  measure,  and  probably 
in  a  wrong  direction.  The  teacher  (if  he  has  any 
educating  insight  or  purpose  at  all)  is  likely  to  find 
that  he  has  as  much  to  undo  as  to  do.  He  soon  learns 
by  sad  experience  the  value  of  those  seven  or  eight 
years  of  a  child's  life  that  have  been  ignorantly  wasted 
or  misused. 

Frobel  was  not  the  first  to  uphold  the  importance  of 
early  education — all  philosophical  writers  on  the  subject 
have  done  the  same ;  but  he  has  given,  in  the  Kinder- 


SEC.  I.]  FOR  LITTLE  CHILDREN  3 

garten  method,  a  detailed  application  of  the  scientific 
principles  he  laid  down,  and  established  a  system  which 
takes  the  child  from  the  cradle,  and  carries  him  through 
progressive  periods  of  physical  and  mental  development. 
Such  a  system  requires,  even  for  its  partial  application, 
the  training  of  a  very  large  number  of  female  teachers ; 
but  for  its  application,  as  a  means  of  national  reform,  it 
would  require  that  mothers  should  be  educated  for  their 
sacred  office — that  women  generally  should  be  taught 
to  consider  that  intelligent  care  of  the  young  is  the 
first  and  most  important  work  for  which  they  need  to 
fit  themselves.  Education  in  the  nursery,  and  for  some 
years  after  leaving  it,  is  inevitably  women's  work  ;  but 
in  popular  estimation  mere  women's  work  must  be  insig- 
nificant, and  thus  the  most  vicious  of  all  the  circles  in 
which  we  have  been  wont  to  turn,  has  remained  from 
generation  to  generation  unbroken.  Early  education 
was  neglected  because  the  mothers  to  whom  it  belonged 
were  unfit  for  the  task  ;  and  women's  education  was 
neglected  because  no  one  could  see  that  they  had  any 
work  to  do  that  required  mental  culture.  And  in  spite 
of  the  endless  discussions  of  the  present  day,  the  real 
interest  in  some  quarters,  the  apparent  interest  in  society 
generally,  we  are  still  turning  round  and  round  that 
same  point,  we  are  still  elaborately  seeking  reasons 
why  women  should  be  allowed  the  privilege  of  mental 
draining,  and  we  are  still  wasting  the  first  years  of  child- 
life,  and  adding  hopelessly  to  the  task  of  later  instruc- 
tors, because  women  have  not  that  requisite  training. 
Yet  in  no  one  thing  in  the  whole  order  of  the  universe 
has  nature  spoken  more  strongly  and  directly  than  in 
this.  She  makes  it  impossible  for  us  to  alter  or  modify 


4  GENERAL  TRAINING  [SEC.  I; 

her  law.  Do  what  we  will,  women  must  mould  infant 
life  and  give  the  first  direction  to  feeling  and  intelli- 
gence ;  all  we  can  manage  in  opposition  is  to  prevent 
them  from  consciously  educating  the  child  with  a  dis- 
tinct and  worthy  purpose,  and  this  we  have,  generally 
speaking,  effectually  done ;  the  teaching  of  nature  has 
been  quite  powerless  against  the  vis  inertiw  of  the  two 
facts  mentioned  above — contempt  for  women's  work, 
and  ignorance  of  the  true  human  purpose  of  education. 

For  proof  of  the  ignorance  we  need  not  confine  our 
observation  to  the  nursery.  Our  Universities  and  our 
National  Schools  alike  will  furnish  it  abundantly.  We 
are  very  apt,  from  the  height  of  our  national  pride,  to 
look  down  upou  the  benighted  nations  of  the  South ; 
but  if  our  people  are  not  altogether  in  the  same  state 
of  ignorance,  it  is  Protestantism,  not  value  for  human 
culture,  that  has  rescued  them.  Of  all  the  indirect 
benefits  conferred  on  us  by  the  theory  of  liberty  of  con- 
science— that  sent  every  man  to  ground  his  own  faith  on 
the  Bible — the  greatest  perhaps  has  been  the  necessity 
thereby  imposed  of  teaching  the  people  to  read  it. 
Popular  education,  and  in  great  measure  that  of 
women,  had  till  of  late  years  no  other  motive  or  purpose. 
But  if  the  religious  duty  of  enabling  every  one  to  read 
the  Bible  became  gradually  accepted,  the  religious  duty 
of  putting  every  human  being  in  possession  of  the 
faculties  bestowed  by  God  has  not  yet  been  clearly 
recognised;  and  the  ignorance  of  all  classes  in  the 
community,  to  whom  knowledge  does  not  represent 
profit  or  advancement,  has  been  the  natural  consequence. 

Nothing,  perhaps,  would  tend  to  alter  popular  views 
on  this  subject  so  much  as  the  working  and  example  of 


SEC.  I.]  FOR  LITTLE  CHILDREN  5 

Kinder-garten  schools.  In  them  Frobel's  system  is 
minutely  applied  to  the  development  of  infant  capacity^ 
I  feel  convinced  that  the  practical  illustration  of  great 
principles  thus  given,  the  philosophical  connection  be- 
tween all  parts  of  the  system,  the  results  of  rational 
training  manifested  in  the  difference  between  Kinder- 
garten pupils  and  other  children  of  the  same  age  when 
they  meet  together  in  more  advanced  schools,  will 
more  than  anything  else  tend  to  prove  to  the  reluctant 
public  that  education  has  a  scientific  basis  and  a  real 
human  purpose  absolutely  distinct  from  all  questions 
of  rewards,  examinations,  or  advancement.  Yet  we  have 
had  such  schools  among  us  for  years.  In  London,  in 
Manchester,  in  Dublin — not  to  mention  other  places — 
there  are  excellent  Kinder-garten  institutions ;  but  as 
regards  influencing  public  opinion,  scarcely  anything 
has  been  done.  Doubtless  through  their  means  many 
persons  have  been  converted  to  the  system,  but  it  has 
not  been  sufficiently  discussed,  or  tho  principles  on 
which  it  rests  sufficiently  expounded,  to  make  it  clear 
to  the  public  on  what  grounds  these  schools  peculiarly 
claim  our  attention.*  It  is  more  than  probable  that 
many  of  the  parents  who  have  themselves  acknowledged 
the  benefit  derived  by  their  own  children  from  Kinder- 
garten training,  have  referred  it  rather  to  this  or  that 
particular  management  or  influence  than  to  the  legiti- 
mate effect  of  sound  theory  methodically  worked  out. 
The  belief  in  particular  facts  and  persons  is  so  simple — 
and  so  English — Awhile  faith  in  wide  principles  is  so 
alien  to  our  habits  of  thought,  that  I  could  well  imagine 
schools  of  this  kind  obtaining  recognised  success  with- 
*  See  Appendix 


GENERAL  TRAINING 


[SEC.  I. 


out  attention  being  roused  to  the  scientific  cause  of  that 
success. 

To  the  English  public  generally  the  Kinder-garten 
system,  so  far  as  it  is  known  at  all,  is  represented  by  the 
games  which,  being  sold  in  inviting-looking  boxes,  have 
been  purchased  for  nursery  amusement,  or  perhaps  as 
an  introduction  to  ordinary  object-lessons.  These  games, 
however,  while  they  are  doubtless  a  source  of  some 
amusement  to  the  children  in  school,  are  also  the  tools, 
so  to  speak,  to  aid  the  teacher  in  her  labours.  Accuracy, 
observation,  the  first  principles  of  reasoning,  are  taught 
by  means  of  these  simple  toys,  while  nicety  and  dex- 
terity of  handling,  and  pleasure  in  active  exertion,  are 
trained  by  every  exercise.  And  even  were  no  infor- 
mation of  much  value  gained  at  the  same  time,  let  any 
teacher  say  what  difference  in  later  school  .studies  it 
would  make  if  all  children  came  to  them  ready  pro- 
vided with  such  habits.  Nor  is  the  training  of  this 
system  solely,  or  even  principally,  directed  to  facilitate 
the  acquisition  of  knowledge  ;  it  takes  the  child's  whole 
nature,  aiding  its  expansion  physically  and  morally,  as 
well  as  intellectually.  The  rhythmical  movements,  the 
dancing  and  singing  games,  are  not  only  good  for  health, 
as  mere  exercise — they  make  the  limbs  supple,  and 
improve  both  eye  and  ear.  Moral  training  is  carried 
on  through  the  habit  of  strict  obedience,  under  a  gentle 
law  ever  referring  to  the  will  of  God,  who  has  placed 
helpless  infancy  under  that  loving  care  which  represents 
His  ceaseless  love  for  all  His  creatures.  And  by  direct- 
ing observation  to  order  and  beauty  in  external  things, 
and  in  human  conduct  as  manifestations  of  God's  rule 
and  presence  throughout  the  world,  religious  and  moral 


SEC.  I.]  FOR  LITTLE   CHILDREN  7 

associations  are  formed,  which,  long  before  the  age  when 
aiiy  catechism  would  be  intelligible,  prepare  the  mind 
for  the  reception  of  all  that  is  highest  in  Christianity 
or  in  philosophy. 

This  seems,  perhaps,  to  claim  much  for  a  system  of 
nursery  training ;  but  the  system  being  founded  on 
principles  deduced  from  a  careful  study  of  human  nature, 
it  is  evident  that  they  must,  if  true,  contain  the  germ  of 
the  highest  development.  The  Kinder-garten  aims  in 
no  way  at  making  infant  prodigies,  but  it  aims  success- 
fully at  putting  the  little  child  in  possession  of  every 
faculty  it  is  capable  of  using ;  at  bringing  him  forward, 
as  far  as  his  puny  strength  will  allow,  -orrirnes  which 
he  will  never  need  to  forsake ;  at  teaching,  within  his 
narrow  range,  what  he  will  never  have  to  unlearn ;  and 
at  giving  him  the  wish  to  learn,  and  the  power  of  teach- 
ing himself.  YWe  may  safely  anticipate  that  children  so 
trained  will  make  better  use  than  others  of  all  higher 
means  of  instruction  in  later  years,  and  make  fewer 
mistakes  in  judgment  and  in  action  ;  in  other  words, 
that  they  will  have  made  more  progress  towards  that 
which  is  the  true  aim  of  life,  self-improvement  and 
power  of  working  for  the  service  of  others. 


SECTION    II. 

FrobeVs  Gifts 

I  HAVE  said  that  the  games  which  play  so  important  a 
part  in  Frobel's  system  are  often  under-valued,  and  all 
benefit  lost,  by  their  being  treated  as  mere  toys,  or  at 
best  as  the  means  of  giving  common  object-lessons. 


8  FKOBEL'S  GIFTS  [SEC  n. 

Nothing  can  be  further  from  the  inventor's  purpose. 
According  to  that  they  stand  as  '  necessarily  connected 
links.'  They  are  not  toys  merely,  because  they  ars  in- 
tended for  instruction  ;  they  are  not  for  lessons  only, 
since  they  are  meant  as  games ;  they  combine  both 
characters,  and  are  designed  to  stimulate  and  guide  the 
natural  activity  of  the  child  in  both  directions.  To  fuse 
into  one  lesson  work  and  play  is  the  purpose  of  the 
Kinder-garten,  and  this  fusion  '  becomes  possible  only 
when  the  objects  with  which  the  child  plays  allow  room 
for  mental  and  bodily  activity.'  In  addition  to  the  dis- 
jointed use  of  what  was  given  as  a  whole,  the  further 
mistake  is  generally  made  of  placing  the  games  in  the 
hands  of  some  nursery  governess,  or  other  person,  who 
has  never  heard  of  Frobel's  system,  probably  has  never 
been  taught  that  nursery  education  requires  any  system 
at  all,  and  the  end  is  failure,  sweetened  by  contempt  for 
Frobel's  method,  the  just  principles  of  which  have  been 
neglected  or  unknown. 

It  may  be  useful,  therefore,  to  give  some  description 
of  the  '  gifts '  (as  these  peculiar  toys  are  called),  and 
of  the  purpose  they  are  destined  to  serve,  before  entering 
further  into  the  exposition  of  Frobel's  theory,  and  like- 
wise to  speak  of  the  more  active  games,  without  which 
the  system  of  combined  physical  and  mental  development 
would  be  utterly  incomplete.  -[These  games  consist  of 
songs  and  dancing,  or  rather  of  rhythmical  movements, 
timed  or  regulated  by  song,  and  are  shared  in  by  all  the 
children  before  they  are  of  an  age  to  employ  themselves 
actively  in  any  work  of  skill,  whether  in  class  or  garden, 
or  to  practice  real  gymnastic  exercises.  It  is  almost 
impossible  by  mere  description  to  convey  a  correct  notion 


SEC.  ii.]  FROBEL'S  GIFTS  9 

of  these  play-dances.  The  little  songs  of  which  they 
are  in  a  manner  the  accompaniment  mostly  tell  some 
story,  or  describe  some  action,  something  relating  to  the 
visible  world — to  bird,  or  beast,  or  plant,  or  change  of 
seasons,  to  the  relations  or  affections  familiar  to  the 
children,  or  some  manual  work  of  which  they  can  mimic 
the  action.  Many  of  these  songs  have  been  translated 
into  English,*  and  the  exercises,  which  afford  unfailing 
delight  to  the  children,  can  be  seen  by  any  visitor  to  a 
Kinder-gar  ten. 

Something  of  the  same  kind  is  practised  in  every 
infant-school.  There,  also,  sedentary  work  is  varied  by 
quick  motion  and  singing;  but  the  Kinder-garten  dancing, 
as  it  is  called,  is  at  once  more  free  and  more  rhythmical. 
A  great  variety  of  movements  are  executed  in  time 
and  order ;  the  children  do  not  merely  walk  to  music, 
but  perform  various  actions  which  bring  each  limb  in 
turn  into  exercise,  and  which,  by  requiring  a  great 
variety  of  attitudes,  give  suppleness  as  well  as  strength 
to  the  muscles.  If  I  wished  to  describe  in  a  few  words 
the  difference  between  the  two,  I  might  say  that  infant- 
school  children  are  preparing  to  learn  drill,  and  Kinder- 
garten children  training  for  choric  dancing.  Some  of 
the  most  important  objects  (in  addition  to  the  mere 
exercise),  such  as  regularity,  simultaneous  movement, 
etc.,  are  common  to  both,  but  the  latter  begin  also  to 
learn  that  sense  of  harmony  and  beauty  which  is  never 
lost  sight  of  in  any  part  of  Frobel's  system. 

*  Mrs  Berry  and  Mde.  Michaelis  have  published  two  series  of  songs 
partly  translated,  partly  adapted,  and  a  few  original,  with  the  music. 
Miss  Heerwart  has  also  published,  under  the  title  of  ' '  Music  for  the 
Kinder-garten,"  another  collection  of  the  same  kind. 


FROBEL'S  GIFTS 


[SEC.  ii. 


We  come  now  to  the  sedentary  games,  and  will  take 
them  in  order. 

The  first  gift  is  the  ball. — Each  child  in  the  class  is 
provided  with  one ;  they  are  all  of  the  same  size,  and 
have  a  short  string  attached  by  which  they  may  be 
suspended,  but  they  are  of  different  colours.  The  first 
purpose  of  giving  the  ball,  as  with  every  other  object 
successively  presented,  is  to  draw  the  child's  attention 
to  all  the  obvious  peculiarities  that  distinguish  it  from 
other  surrounding  objects,  whether  in  form,  in  colour,  in 
texture,  or  in  properties — that  is,  whether  hard  or  soft, 
fragile  or  elastic,  etc.;  and  the  ball  is  first  selected  on 
account  of  the  simplicity  of  the  spherical  form  making 
a  single  impression,  requiring  therefore  no  combined 
view  of  different  lines  and  surfaces.  The  game  or 
exercise  consists  of  a  series  of  movements  executed 
with  the  ball,  which  is  now  raised,  now  lowered,  placed 
to  the  right,  then  to  the  left,  passed  from  one  hand  to 
the  other,  from  one  child  to  the  "other,  noting  the  effect 
of  each  change  in  relation  to  the  other  objects  and 
positions,  the  movements  now  quicker,  now  slower, 
being  always  executed  by  word  of  command,  promptly, 
exactly,  and  together, — things  which  some  may  smile  at 
as  part  of  a  school  lesson,  but  which  are  not  thought 
unimportant  on  the  parade-ground  of  a  regiment.  At 
the  beginning  and  ending  of  each  game,  whether  in 
opening  the  box  that  contains  the  '  gift,'  in  taking  out 
the  objects,  in  passing  them  along  from  one  to  another, 
the  same  order  and  disciplined  motion  is  exacted ;  and, 
besides  the  other  results  mentioned  above,  a  sense  of 
fellowship  is  created  from  acting  together ;  and  the 
gentleness  enforced  by  the  teacher,  and  naturally  aided 


SEC.  IL]  FEOBEL'S  GIFTS  11 

'6y  the  order  and  rhythm,  excludes  all  outward  token  of 
rude  or  unkind  feeling,  and  thus  tends  to  foster  the 
opposite,  to  create  an  association  of  pleasure  with  kind 
and  gentle  intercourse.  It  may  be  observed  here,  that 
moral  influence,  direct  or  indirect,  is  always  present  in 
this  system,  and  the  repression  of  selfishness  is  a  lead- 
ing object.  Nothing  in  the  child's  whole  training  is  for 
one  alone;  there  is  emulation,  but  no  competition  for 
rewards,  and  the  children's  temper  is  saved  from  irrita- 
tion by  the  absence  of  all  that  souring  influence  that 
comes  from  impotent  effort  and  straining  over  solitary 
tasks. 

The  second  gift  consists  of  a  sphere,  a  cube,  and 
a  cylinder. — By  means  of  these  the  children's  natural 
power  of  observation  is  drawn  out  to  discover  for  them- 
selves the  difference  between  these  forms  and  the  various 
ways  in  which  they  could  be  used,  etc.  We  have  no 
longer  the  simple  perception  awakened  by  the  ball,  but 
sides,  surfaces,  lines,  and  circumference;  and  when 
these  are  clearly  distinguished,  the  right  terms  for  them 
are  always  given,  so  that  when  any  fact  connected  with 
these  figures  is  accurately  apprehended,  it  is  also  accu- 
rately labelled  in  the  child's  memory,  becoming  thus  of 
easy  reference  hereafter,  whether  in  the  advanced  series 
of  this  peculiar  instruction,  or  in  approaching  the  stud}7" 
of  geometry.  There  is  this  peculiarity  in  these  games, 
though  intended  for  such  young  children  (from  three  to 
seven  generally),  there  is  no  attempt  to  adapt  the  truths 
of  science  to  childish  apprehension,  expressed  in  childish 
language  ;  the  whole  aim  is  to  direct  infant  observation, 
to  perceive,  and  budding  intelligence  to  seize  the  true 
aspects  and  relations  of  such  objects  as  are  presented  to 


12  FROBEL'S  GIFTS  J.SEC.II] 

them,  and  at  onee  to  acquire  the  familiar  use  of  the 
right  terms,  which  must  be  learned  whenever  real  study 
begins. 

In  the  use  of  this  second  gift  we,  however,  enter  upon 
the  ground  in  which  Frobel's  system  achieves  the 
largest  measure  of  actual  instruction  in  the  ordinary 
sense.  The  successive  series  of  exercises  with  the  cube, 
the  sphere,  and  the  cylinder,  aided  later  by  other  *  gifts' 
and  instruments  of  work,  impart  as  they  go  on  an 
accurate  and  familiar  acquaintance  with  the  facts  and 
relations  on  which  geometrical  truths  are  founded,  and 
some  of  the  more  obvious  conclusions  are  arrived  at  by 
a  process  which  makes  them  henceforth  a  part  of  the 
child's  own  experience.  The  advantage  so  gained  in 
facilitating  later  study  is  very  great,  but  far  greater  is 
the  educational  value  of  the  training  which  has  made 
accurate  observation,  reasoning  from  one  fact  to  another, 
and  the  perception  of  necessary  relations  habitual.  The 
boy  who  carries  such  habits  to  school  will  be  among 
his  fellows  like  the  workman  who  is  familiar  with  his 
tools,  compared  to  the  novice  who  is  learning  their 
names. 

The  third  gift  is  a  ciibe,  composed  of  eight  smaller 
cubes. — The  principal  object  of  the  exercise  with  this  is 
to  lead  the  child  to  distinguish  partefrom  the  whole,  to 
observe  the  distribution  of  parts,  to  count  them,  and  to 
discover  modes  of  construction  with  the  pieces  he 
possesses.  The  durable  lessons  learnt?  are  of  arithmetic 
and  of  symmetry ;  the  former  carried  by  simple  steps 
up  to  fractions,  the  latter  to  whatever  figures  can  be 
constructed  with  the  little  cubes  alone.  The  child  does 
not  learn  a  single  rule  of  arithmetic  till  he  has  dis- 


SEC.  IL]  FROBEL'S  GIFTS  13 

covered  the  sense  of  it  practically ;  he  performs,  accord- 
ing to  order,  certain  operations  with  the  objects  before 
him,  divides  his  little  heap,  adds,  subtracts,  and  puts 
together  again,  and,  lo !  a  certain  result  is  clear  before 
him;  some  brief  formula  may  then  be  given,  and  he 
himself  perceives  that  his  memory  of  what  he  has  done, 
and  his  power  of  doimg  exactly  the  same  thing  again,  is 
aided  by  putting  the  result  into  words.  The  number  of 
figures  that  may  be  constructed  with  the  little  cubes  is 
greater  than  we -should  imagine  till  we  see  them  before 
us.  The  most  familiar  objects  are  naturally  chosen — a 
table,  a  bench,  a  door,  a  window,  a  flight  of  steps ;  but 
each  furnishes  the  teacher  with  abundant  means  for 
leading  the  child  to  fresh  observation,  to  the  perception 
of  similarities  and  differences,  analogies  and  contrasts,  of 
symmetry,  with  its  accompanying  sense  of  completeness, 
or  of  the  want  of  symmetry,  with  its  discordant  effect. 
The  lesson,  if  so  it  may  be  called,  is  mingled  with  what- 
ever of  narrative  or  of  natural  history  the  objects  may 
suggest  to  the  teacher.  'The  child,' as  Madame  Pape 
Carpentier*  remarks,  in  speaking  of  such  lessons,  'is 
not  amused,  but  he  is  interested/  and  he  is  interested 
because  his  own  mental  activity  is  fully  drawn  out 
without  fatigue.  He  has  no  natural  aversion  to,  and 

*  See  the  admirable  lectures  delivered  by.  this  lady  at  the  Sorbonne 
in  1867,  when  the  Government,  at  the  time  of  the  Exhibition,  sum- 
moned the  schoolmasters  from  all  parts  of  France  to  attend  the  Con- 
ferences on  Education,  in  which  many  of  the  leading  professors  took 
part.  Madame  Carpentier  had  been  requested  to  give  her  views  on  the 
application  to  schools  generally  of  the  method  she  used  in  the  Salles 
d'Asile,  which  is  founded  on  Frobel's  principles.  Her  exposition  was 
thought  so  good,  that  she  was  requested  to  continue  it  in  a  second,  and 
again  in  a  third  lecture. 


14  FKOBEL'S  GIFTS  [SEC.  IL 

no  incapacity  for  thought,  as  we  may  daily  learn  from 
the  '  why  ?'  with  which  he  meets  each  new  event  in  his 
experience ;  but  he  can  think  only  about  facts  pre- 
sented to  his  observation,  not  about  words  or  remote 
action,  of  which  he  is  unable  to  form  a  conception. 

After  each  lesson,  the  children  build  according  to 
their  own  fancy,  emulating  each  other  in  their  con- 
structions, sometimes  imitating  some  familiar  object, 
sometimes  forming  mere  symmetrical  figures,  as  they 
happen  to  take  more  pleasure  in  one  or  the  other,  it 
matters  not  which,  so  long  as  originality  and  activity 
are  both  brought  into  play.  '  Want  of  originality,  in 
the  highest  sense  of  the  word,  among  men  is  principally 
caused  (says  one  of  the  best  writers  on  Frobel's  sys- 
tem*) by  the  hindrances  that  keep  down  the  early 
active  tendencies  of  children,  or  at  least  give  them  no 
assistance/  And  in  another  place  she  remarks,  with 
equal  truth,  '  By  independent  action  we  prepare  inde- 
pendent though t.'-f  In  the  Kinder-garten  such  pre- 
paration begins  with  the  dawn  of  intelligence,  and 
continues  long  enough  to  make  the  association  of  plea- 
sure with  the  exercise  of  mental  activity  too  strong  to 
be  easily  broken. 

The  fourth  gift  is  also  a  cube  of  equal  dimensions 
with  the  former  one,  but  subdivided  into  eight  oblong 
pieces  (or  bricks,  as  the  children  call  them),  the  length 
of  each  being  twice  its  breadth,  and  the  breadth  twice 
its  thickness.  With  these  begins  a  new  series  of  obser- 


*  B.  Von  Marenholtz  Bulo\v,  Die  Arbeit  und  die  neue  Erziehung, 
p.  lo». 

t  Idem,  p.  181. 


SEC.  ii.]  FROBEL'S  GIFTS  15 

vations  of  lines  and  surfaces.  The  cube  itself  is  familiar 
to  the  child,  but  the  child  finds  that  the  pieces  of  which 
it  is  composed  are  different  from  the  former  ones.  In 
those  all  the  sides  were  alike  in  shape  and  size ;  here 
they  vary,  and  he  has  new  discoveries  to  make,  and  new 
names  to  learn  in  consequence.  The  method  and  the 
class  of  observations  in  this  game  naturally  follow  the 
same  course  as  in  the  last,  and  the  amusing  work  of 
construction  follows  in  the  same  manner;  first  under 
dictation,  and  with  commentaries  by  the  teachers,  and 
afterwards  freely,  according  to  each  child's  fancy.  The 
same  mode  of  instruction  is  followed  with  the  fifth  and 
sixth  gifts,  which  in  like  manner  are  cubes,  of  the  same 
size  as  the  former  ones,  but  differently  subdivided,  and 
with  some  pieces  cut  diagonally,  so  as  to  form  triangular 
blocks  introducing  acute  angles,  and  a  whole  new  series 
of  observations.  Thus  the  child  acquires  almost  insen- 
sibly more  and  more  acquaintance  with  different  lines 
and  figures,  and  their  relations  to  each  other,  laying 
the  foundation  for  future  study  of  geometry,  which  is 
further  facilitated  by  his  becoming  familiar  with  the 
correct  terms  for  all  he  deals  with. 

The  next  things  we  find  used  in  two  successive  play- 
lessons  are,  first,  small  sticks,  and,  secondly,  thin  laths, 
which  I  mention  together,  as  being  very  similar  in  use. 
The  sticks  are  of  10  centimetres  (somewhat  more  than 
3J  inches),  the  laths  of  25  centimetres  (rather  more 
than  10  inches)  in  length.  As  I,  however,  have  not 
space  to  enter  into  the  detail  of  the  lessons  given  by 
means  of  these  new  toys,  it  must  suffice  to  say  that  they 
serve  to  continue  the  arithmetical  instruction,  but  still 
more  the  construction  of  geometrical  figures  begun  with 


16 


FEOBEL'S  GIFTS 


[SEC.  ii. 


the  cubes,  leading  the  child  to  discover  further  facts, 
and  reach  further  conclusions. 

Up  to  this  time  solids  and  surfaces  have  been  pre- 
sented to  his  observation  ;  now  the  sticks  and  laths 
represent  lines,  and  he  learns  to  form  the  outline  of 
figures.*  He  now  constructs  for  himself  the  angles 
which  before  were  given  to  him  by  the  cubes,  and 
proceeds  by  laying  the  sticks  in  this  direction  or  in 
that,  to  form  other  angles  hitherto  unknown,  and 
to  observe  the  points  that  distinguish  them  from  the 
former  class,  their  relations  to  the  latter  and  to  each 
other,  etc. ;  and  still,  at  each  step,  he  has  got  firm 
hold  of  a  fact,  and  has  learnt  the  right  designation 
for  it. 

The  laths  being  flexible,  and  capable,  therefore,  of 
being  interlaced,  the  figures  constructed  with  them  are 
in  a  measure  fixed,  and  can  be  lifted  from  the  table: 
the  child  thus  learns  to  recognise  the  same  forms  in 
a  different  plane.  Greater  variety  also  is  now  possible. 
Triangles  had  been  made  with  the  little  sticks  ;  those 
made  with  the  laths  can  be  interlaced  ;  lozenges  in  the 
same  manner;  figures  with  double  lines  joining  and 
interlacing  at  the  angles  offer  another  series  of  changes 
— all  pleasing  by  their  symmetry,  and  exciting  the  fancy 
of  the  children  to  try  and  produce  some  new  combina- 
tion of  their  own.  A  glance  at  the  plates  in  Madame 


*  For  what  reason  the  name  of  '  gifts '  has  been  given  to  the  ob- 
jects above  described,  and  not  to  those  used  in  the  further  series  of 
play-lessons,  I  do  not  know  ;  but  the  difference  is  a  merely  technical 
one,  and  only  worth  noting  in  order  that  persons  wishing  to  pur- 
chase the  objects  required  for  Kinder-garten  instruction  should  not  be 
misled. 


SEC.  ii.]  FROBEL'S  GIFTS  17 

Delon's  book  *  would  astonish  most  persons  new  to  the 
method,  by  the  extraordinary  variety  that  these  simple 
means  can  produce.  It  will  be  still  more  striking  when 
we  come  to  the  further  exercises  I  have  yet  to  describe. 


SECTION   III 

FrobeVs  Gifts — continued. 

WITHOUT  the  assistance  of  diagrams  it  is  very  difficult 
to  make  any  method  of  instruction  in  the  Kinder- 
garten even  fairly  intelligible ;  still,  I  believe  some 
description  of  this  kind  to  be  so  essential  towards 
making  the  principles  of  the  method  clear  to  those 
who  have  no  previous  acquaintance  with  Kinder-garten 
schools,  that  I  must  still  trust  to  my  reader's  patience, 
and  pursue  the  description  through  the  remaining  por- 
tions of  the  class  teaching. 

All  the  objects  hitherto  described  as  instruments  of 
instruction,  except  the  ball  and  cylinder,  have  dealt 
with  straight  lines,  and  the  figures  formed  by  those 
lines.  We  have  the  '  gifts '  of  solids,  such  as  cubes, 
and  bricks ;  then  the  games  with  sticks  and  laths,  for 
constructing  interlinear  figures;  after  these  begin  a 
series  of  exercises  upon  curved  lines,  and  these  are 


*  Methode  Intuitive,  par  Mde.  Fanny  Ch.  Delon.  This  book  gives 
an  admirable  account  of  the  practical  system,  though  rejecting  some 
of  Frb'Wt's  philosophical  views.  The  plates  are  invaluable  in  making 
the  operations  intelligible,  and  are  remarkably  full  and  clear. 

B 


tOBEL'S  GIFTS 


SEC.  III. 


conducted  by  means  of  small  metal  rings  and  portions 
of  rings.  Besides  the  new  facts  that  are  learnt  in  this 
fresh  field  of  observation,  a  complete  new  set  of  figures 
may  be  produced,  and  the  imitation  of  objects  passes 
from  that  of  things  constructed  by  human  art,  which 
are  mostly  rectilinear,  to  that  of  natural  objects,  in 
which  curved  lines  in  every  possible  variety  prevail. 
In  the  first  exercise  four  rings  are  distributed  to  each 
child,  with  the  customary  forms  used  in  opening  all  the 
other  games.  The  teacher  begins  by  making  some 
remarks  on  the  rings  themselves  —  their  size,  weight, 
the  metal  they  are  made  of;  and  then  the  lesson  turns 
on  their  peculiar  form,  which  the  children  learn  is  to 
be  called  a  '  circle.'  This  is  recognised  as  having  been 
seen  before  in  the  base  of  the  cylinder,  but  the  ring 
gives  only  the  outline  or  circumference.  The  circles 
now  in  use  are  equal  to  each  other ;  this  is  shown  by 
laying  one  upon  the  other ;  then  they  are  laid  side  by 
side  in  actual  contact,  and  an  important  fact  is  dis- 
covered by  the  children,  namely,  that  the  circles,  if  not 
allowed  to  cross,  can  touch  each  other  in  one  point 
only. 

Three  other  exercises  follow  successively,  in  which 
circles,  semicircles,  and  various  segments  of  circles,  are 
used.  Sometimes  the  circumference  is  to  be  recon- 
structed with  the  various  parts,  sometimes  the  seg- 
ments are  to  be  arranged  so  that  lines  of  different 
curves,  whether  broken  or  continuous,  should  be  pro- 
duced. Now  they  are  placed  side  by  side,  and  it  is 
seen  that,  as  with  the  circles,  the  segments  also  can 
touch  at  one  point  only ;  then  again  they  are  crossed, 
and  it  is  manifest  that  while  any  portions  of  a  circle 


SEC.  in.]  FROBEL'S  GIFTS  19 

may  be  so  placed  as  to  intersect  each  other  in  one 
point  only,  circles,  if  crossed  one  over  the  other,  must 
have  two  points  of  intersection. 

Such  is  the  kind  of  instruction  conveyed  in  these 
exercises;  but  the  important  thing  to  consider  is  the 
method,  which  remains  the  same  throughout,  not  teach 
ing,  in  the  ordinary  sense,  but  leading  the  children  to 
learn — exciting  their  interest  till  they  wish  to  observe, 
compare,  and  note  results  for  themselves ;  when  some 
new  thing  is  to  be  learnt,  so  arranging  the  lesson  that 
it  shall  bring  the  fact  to  view  in  such  a  manner  as  will 
lead  the  child  to  observe  it  himself.  It  thus  becomes 
his  own  discovery,  and  precious  to  him  henceforth  as 
nothing  merely  committed  to  his  memory  will  ever  be. 
The  child  is  placed  by  the  teacher  in  such  a  relation  to 
external  objects,  that  he  naturally  questions  them;  he 
goes  through  the  process  of  self-education,  but  is  saved 
from  the  mistakes  of  the  self-educated  by  walking  un- 
consciously in  the  groove  carefully  prepared  for  him. 

It  is  evident  that  with  the  addition  of  circles  and 
other  curved  lines,  the  variety  of  symmetrical  figures 
that  can  be  constructed  is  immensely  increased.  It  is 
impossible  without  plates  to  give  any  idea  of  what  that 
A7ariety  really  is,  and  what  the  beauty  of  the  designs 
produced  by  the  simple  juxtaposition  and  interlacing  of 
curves.  When  we  look  at  some  of  the  plates  in  such  a 
work  as  Mde.  Delon's,  and  learn  that  the  patterns  given 
were  the  independent  invention  of  little  children  under 
eight  years  of  age,  we  gain  a  truer  idea  than  we  other- 
wise could  do  of  the  extent  to  which  this  system  de- 
velopes  the  sense  of  beauty,  and  the  feeling  of  harmony 
and  symmetry  as  essential  to  beauty ;  and  this  is  not 


20 


FROBEL'S  GIFTS 


[SEC. 


merely  the  foundation  of  all  artistic  creation  in  its  high- 
est, as  in 'its  lowest  forms,  but  of  artistic  enjoyment, 
adding  to  the  pleasure  of  life  in  the  cottage  as  in  the 
palace,  wherever  the  forms  and  tints  of  nature  speak  to 
the  imagination  and  the  heart  of  man. 

The  rings  end  the  series  of  exercises  of  this  kind.  In 
Ad  the  games  hitherto  described,  from  the  ball  to  the 
circles,  and  segments  of  circles,  the  child  has  had  ready- 
-made objects  furnished  to  him,  which  he  could  p?.u,ce  or 
•displace,  but  not  otherwise  alter;  this,  howevei,  is  but 
one  portion  of  Kinder-garten  instruction,  which  alms  at 
training  manual  dexterity  and  love  of  active  work,  no 
less  than  at  awakening  and  directing  intelligence. 
Frobel  is  never  weary  of  repeating  that  man  must  not 
only  knoiv  but  produce  ;  not  only  think  but  work ;  and 
that  the  capacity  for  work  must  be  trained  in  early 
childhood,  side  by  side  with  the  observing  and  appre- 
hending faculty,  and  before  the  memory  is  burdened 
with  words  and  symbols.  I  have,  for  the  sake  of  con- 
venience, gone  through  the  series  of  games  without  in- 
terruption, but  the  various  kinds  of  work  are  also  taught 
almost  from  the  beginning,  and  the  facts  learnt  in  play- 
ing with  the  sticks  and  laths,  and  in  forming  figures 
with  them,  are  applied  in  working  a  great  variety  of 
patterns. 

The  first  work  to  be  learnt  is  plaiting.  This  is  done 
with  strips  of  paper,  and  the  art  consists  in  the  regu- 
larity and  neatness  it  requires,  both  of  which  are  difficult 
to  attain  by  little  uncertain  fingers  hitherto  ignorant  of 
•purpose. 

Weaving,  which  follows  next,  is  also  done  with  strips 
of  paper  laced  in  and  out  through  other  strips  fastened 


SEC.  in.]  FROBEL'S  GIFTS  21 

on  a  little  frame.  Different  coloured  papers  aie  gene- 
rally used,  and  a  pattern  is  given  to  the  child  till  he 
can  make  one  for  himself.  Folding  and  cutting  out 
complete  the  series,  and  are  begun  about  the  same  time 
as  the  latter  games.  The  advantage  of  this  sort  of  hand 
exercise  over  needlework  is  manifold — they  follow  in 
the  same  direction  as  the  games,  illustrate  in  some 
measure  the  same  principles,  they  lead  on  to  drawing, 
which  is  a  very  important  part  of  the  subsequent  work. 
Needlework  is  confined  to  girls,  while  boys  in  ordinary 
schools  learn  no  manual  art  till  they  are  fit  to  hold  a 
pen  or  a  pencil;  and,  lastly,  they  offer  variety  and  a 
certain  amount  of  beauty  which  please  and  interest  the 
children,  while  nothing  can  enliven  the  dulness  of  the 
hem  or  the  seam.  The  latter  will  not,  however,  lose  in 
the  long  run,  for  the  dexterity,  neatness,  and  accuracy 
of  hand  acquired  in  the  various  operations  enumerated 
aV  te,  and  followed  by  drawing,  will  make  needlework 
very  easy  to  learn  hereafter. 

I  cannot  here  enter  into  more  detail  concerning  these 
various  forms  of  work,  which  are,  in  fact,  partly  exer- 
cises of  mere  manipulation,  partly  opportunities  for 
displaying  fancy.  Cutting-out,  which  is  the  latest,  is 
by  far  the  most  difficult,  and  gives  for  the  first  time  to 
+he  child  the  use  of  a  tool,  the  delicate  handling  of 
which  is  the  most  important  thing  to  be  learnt.  Fold- 
ing is  less  difficult  and  less  artistic  in  its  results,  but 
it  affords  the  opportunity  of  continuing  the  elementary 
geometrical  instruction  begun  in  the  various  games. 
By  folding  squares  of  paper  in  different  ways,  but 
always  with  strict  attention  to  accuracy  in  bringing  the 
edges  exactly  together,  the  lines  produced  divide  and 


22  FKOBEL'S  GIFTS  [SEC.  m. 

subdivide  the  original  space,  forming  figures  of  different 
shapes  and  dimensions;  or  they  intersect  each  other, 
and  form  angles  of  various  kinds.  Some  of  these  are 
familiar  in  the  games  with  cubes  or  sticks,  and  the 
proper  designations  of  any  new  figures  are  learnt  with- 
out trouble ;  since  a  child  can  remember  the  names  of 
right  or  acute  angles,  of  squares  or  triangles  just  as 
easily  as  those  of  any  familiar  objects  around  him,  so 
long  as  they  have  been  made  equally  obvious,  and  have 
been  equally  the  objects  of  his  own  observation  and 
experience.  It  is  curious  to  hear  a  class  of  little 
children  so  taught,  eagerly  pointing  out  in  surrounding 
furniture  or  decoration  of  the  room,  which  are  the  right 
or  the  acute  angles,  or  which  the  horizontal,  perpendi- 
cular, or  oblique  lines,  showing  that  they  have  accu- 
rately retained  the  names  which  they  have  learned,  one 
by  one,  in  order  to  register  their  own  observations. 
Perfectly  familiar  with  the  thing,  they  have  felt  the 
convenience  of  being  able  to  refer  to  it. 

In  the  course  of  his  folding,  the  child  also  discovers 
by  the  result  of  his  own  observation  the  important  fact 
that  the  angles  formed  at  one  point  of  intersection  of 
two  or  more  lines  must  be  four  right  angles,  or  equal 
to  four  right  angles;  and  the  fact  so  acquired  is  to  him 
a  self-evident  truth.  Such  empirical  knowledge  may 
be  an  improper  mode  of  approaching  exact  science,  but 
it  is  the  only  mode  possible  in  childhood,  and  it  will 
be  found  no  small  advantage  later  that  the  intelligence 
has  learnt  to  view  such  facts  as  practical  truths.  What 
has  been  clearly  and  indelibly  fixed  in  the  mind  by 
the  one  method,  will  far  more  readily  be  accepted  on 
scientific  grounds  when  the  age  for  scientific 


SEC.  m.]  FKOBEL'S  GIFTS  23 

is  come.  After  some  manual  skill,  and  some  accuracy 
of  eye  and  touch,  have  been  acquired,  the  first  steps 
are  made  towards  learning  to  draw.  '  Frobel  required 
from  every  educated  person  a  certain  degree  of  skill  in 
drawing,  for  the  purpose  of  ensuring  accurate  percep- 
tion of  objects,  and  likewise  to  make  use  of  plastic  art 
as  a  means  of  cultivation,  and  to  give  the  capacity  for 
art  enjoyment  even  to  those  who  possess  no  power 
themselves.  He  considered  it  as  highly  important  that 
a  child  should  acquire  some  facility  in  drawing  before 
he  learns  to  read  or  write,  since  the  representation  of 
actual  things  should  precede  the  representation  of  signs 
and  words/*  This  is  a  peculiar  view,  but  those  who 
might  dispute  the  question  of  precedence  will  hardly 
deny  that  drawing  has  never  yet  been  made  use  of  in 
education  as  it  might  be ;  that  a  study  which,  besides 
all  its  practical  advantages,  affords  the  most  admirable 
means  of  training  accuracy  of  observation,  and  truth 
of  reproduction,  of  cultivating  at  once  the  senses  and 
the  most  valuable  mental  habits,  has  been  strangely 
neglected.  '  Accurate  and  well-cultivated  senses  lead,' 
says  the  author  just  quoted,  '  to  accurate  perception 
and  comparison,  and  thus  the  elements  of  just  thought 
are  prepared/  The  reason  why  children  seldom  learn 
to  think  from  books  is  that  the  ideas  presented  take 
no  hold  of  their  minds.  It  would  be  curious  to  inquire 
how  much  of  the  loose  thinking,  the  hazy  perception 
of  truth,  which  characterise  the  majority  of  even  the 
educated  portion  of  mankind,  might  be  traced  back  to 

*  Die  Arbeit  und  die  neue  Erziehung,  Baronin  von  Marenholtz 
Bulow,  p.  133. 


24  FKOBEL'S  GIFTS  [SEC.  in. 

the  absence  of  any  definite  impressions  made  in  child- 
hood in  connection  with  the  instruction  given  to  them. 
They  are  occupied  with  words,  and  words  are  vague 
and  often  void  of  meaning  to  them.  Outside  the 
school-room  they  acquire  definite  impressions,  but  they 
are  acquired  at  random,  and  may  be  wholly  wanting 
in  accuracy.  They  will,  however,  exercise  more  influ- 
ence than  what  is  learnt  at  school,  for  the  instruction 
there  given  is  quite  apart  from  any  practical  region,  and 
has  no  solid  foundation  in  observation  or  experience. 

Kinder-garten  drawing-lessons  begin  in  the  humblest 
manner ;  the  first  attempt,  before  the  little  fingers  are 
able  to  guide  a  pencil,  is  made  by  forming  the  outline 
of  figures  with  a  succession  of  holes  pricked  along  ruled 
paper,  or  over  a  pattern ;  the  difficulty  to  be  sur- 
mounted being  that  of  making  the  holes  at  equal  dis- 
te>™ce  and  of  equal  size.  This  kind  of  work  is  carried 
on  in  various  manners,  but  need  not  detain  us  here ; 
that  which  is  a  preparation  for  drawing  is  continued 
till  the  hand  is  steady  enough  to  use  a  pencil.  As  soon 
as  this  point  is  attained,  first  a  ruled  slate,  and  then 
ruled  paper  is  used.  The  ruling,  which  is  in  regular 
squares,  has  the  advantage  of  saving  the  beginner  from 
gross  errors  till  the  steadier  hand  and  eye  can  draw 
correct  lines,  true  both  in  direction  and  proportion. 
When  this  is  in  some  measure  achieved,  the  pupils 
begin  to  reproduce  in  drawing  the  same  kind  of  geo- 
metrical figures  and  symmetrical  patterns  which  they 
formerly  constructed  with  the  sticks,  laths,  or  rings. 
Not  till  eye  and  hand  have  been  exercised  in  tracing 
these  outlines  is  drawing  from  objects  attempted;  and, 
indeed,  the  little  pupils  of  the  real  Kinder-garten  rarely 


SEC.  in.]  FROBEL'S  GIFTS  25 

can  attain  to  that  point ;  it  must  be  reserved,  as  more 
advanced  instruction  is  reserved  by  Frobel,  for  what 
he  called  transition  classes  (vermittlung's  Klasse),  the 
teaching  in  which  is  intended  to  bridge  over  the  chasm 
between  the  complete  object  lessons  of  the  earlier 
period  and  the  comparatively  abstract  studies  of  later 
schools. 

Little,  however,  as  the  Kinder-garten  pupils  may 
achieve  in  drawing,  it  is  certain  that  a  child  who  has 
acquired  command  over  his  pencil,  in  whom  the  feeling 
of  symmetry  and  proportion  has  been  early  awakened, 
and  accuracy  of  observation  daily  trained  and  tested, 
would  join  a  drawing-class  ready  to  profit  at  once  by 
the  lessons  of  a  good  master,  while  his  contemporaries 
are  slowly  learning  to  use  their  untrained  senses  and 
clumsy,  unsteady  fingers. 

In  Frobel's  system,  drawing,  as  I  said  before,  pre- 
cedes writing ;  and  writing  so  far  precedes  reading  that 
the  pupil  must  be  able  to  trace  at  once  the  symbols 
which  are  given  to  him  as  representing  certain  sounds. 
The  methods  of  teaching  to  read  and  write  differ  in 
different  Kinder-gartens,*  and  would  at  any  rate  not 
be  easily  made  intelligible  by  mere  description.  The 
pupils,  generally,  acquire  these  essential  arts  later  than 
other  children ;  but  this  is  in  Frobel's  view  an  advan- 
tage, since  he  thought  little  of  what  young  children 
can  learn  from  books,  and  much  of  what  they  acquire 
from  the  observation  of  nature  and  of  surrounding 
objects,  and  from  the  trained  capacity  for  dealing  with 
outer  things.  All  necessary  acquisitions  will  subse- 

*  German  method  and  English  differ  somewhat  in  this  respect; 


FEOBEL'S  GIFTS  [SEC.  IIL 

quently  be  made  with  comparative  facility,  in  propor- 
tion as  the  senses  and  general  intelligence  have  been 
cultivated.  Ordinary  schools  made  it  their  great  busi- 
ness to  impart  knowledge :  the  Kinder-garten  aims  at 
developing  the  human  being.  It  is  only  by  the  fitness 
of  their  pupils  in  riper  years  for  the  manifold  work  of 
life  that  the  two  systems  can  be  fairly  compared  and 
judged. 


SECTION  IV. 
Principles  of  Frobel's  System 


I  have  given  a  rapid  sketch  of  the  principal  games 
and  exercises  of  the  Kinder-garten.  Several  others 
might  be  mentioned,  such  as  modelling,  which  was 
greatly  valued  by  Frobel,  and  which,  strange  as  it 
appears,  is  practised  by  little  children  and  carried  on 
through  the  later  classes,  but  I  have  said  enough  for 
my  purpose ;  and  will  only  add  here  a  few  words  on  the 
care  of  animals  and  of  a  garden,  which  are  introduced 
whenever  it  is  possible  into  Kinder-garten  training,  and 
which  have  the  advantage  of  combining  in  a  peculiarly 
happy  manner  bodily  exercise  and  moral  influence  with 
the  cultivation  of  intelligence. 

The  children  work  themselves  in  their  own  patch  of 
ground,  but,  although  allowed  to  follow  freely  their 
own  fancies,  it  is  a  natural  result  of  the  method  pursued, 
that  they  observe  what  is  done  around  them,  and  desire 
to  understand  and  to  imitate.  They  are  led  to  observe 
the  peculiar  nature  of  the  plants  or  the  animals  that  ara 
given  to  their  care,  and  the  wish  easily  arises  to  leara 


SEC.  iv.]  FROBEL'S  PRINCIPLES  21} 

how  they  should  be  tended,  why  such  or  such  things 
are  good  or  bad,  and  to  watch  the  changes  that  take 
place,  and  which  stimulate  the  desire  to  know  more. 
Nature  seemed  to  Frobel  the  great  book  from  which  the 
child  must  have  its  first  lessons,  as  the  man  there  learns 
his  highest  wisdom;  thus,  amidst  natural  objects,  be 
exercises  not  only  intelligence,  but  activity,  steadiness 
of  purpose  in  giving  the  required  care  from  day  to 
day,  kindness,  in  practically  ministering  to  the  wants 
or  pleasure  of  feebler  creatures,  and  in  giving  help  to 
companions  if  needed,  and  imagination  and  sense  of 
beauty  in  the  daily  admiration  of  bird  and  blossom,  of 
earth  and  sky,  rising  thence  in  wonder  and  thankful- 
ness to  the  Father  in  heaven,  who  made  and  cares 
for  all. 

I  have  said  above  that  a  fuller  statement  of  details 
is  not  needed  for  my  purpose,  which  is  simply  to  explain 
enough  to  make  Frobel's  principles  of  education  intel- 
ligible. Nothing  but  long  and  careful  study  of  the 
system  in  actual  working  will  give  such  knowledge  of 
details  as  would  enable  any  person  to  practice  the 
peculiar  mode  of  instruction,  or  to  understand  many 
important  points,  such  as  the  length  of  time  to  be 
given  to  each  exercise,  or  which  of  these  may  be  used 
simultaneously,  The  most  elaborate  descriptions  would 
only  mislead  the  reader,  if  they  induced  him  to  fancy 
that  any  book  could  supersede  attendance  in  the 
classes  themselves.  My  purpose,  I  repeat,  is  merely  to 
supply  illustrations  of  a  method  so  deeply  philosophical 
in  its  principle,  yet  so  simple  in  its  outer  aspect, 
that  its  greatest  danger  is  that  of  being  treated  as  a 
plaything. 


28  FROBEL'S  PRINCIPLES  [SEC.  iv. 

Playthings  in  one  sense,  indeed,  these  'gifts'  of 
Frobel's  were  intended  to  be,  for  he  had  watched  the 
childish  instinct  for  play,  and  had  recognised  in  that  the 
germ  of  man's  activity,  and  hence  through  games'  he 
devised  the  means  of  drawing  out  that  active  instinct 
into  conscious  exercise.  He  sought  to  guide  and  direct 
the  childish  impulse,  and  that  direction  gives  the  play- 
things their  educational  value.  They  are  toys  to  the 
child ;  but  instruments  of  serious  mental  discipline 
to  the  teachers,  who  know  that  through  them  all,  used 
in  their  proper  sequence,  runs  a  distinct  and  gradually 
unfolding  purpose.  The  teacher  who  forgets  this,  and 
allows  the  gifts  to  be  toys  in  his  hands  also,  destroys 
their  whole  value.  Nothing  is  more  strongly  insisted 
on  by  Madame  von  Marenholtz  Bulow,  in  the  admirable 
work  I  have  before  quoted,  than  the  folly  of  those 
who  trifle  with  the  order  and  purpose  of  the  games. 
Frobel's  method  is  one  whole  founded  on  a  great 
principle  :  those  who  break  it  up  and  select  parts  for 
their  own  use,  show  that  they  have  never  penetrated 
below  the  surface. 

Let  us  then  consider  what  are  the  principles  on 
which  this  peculiar  system  of  education  rests.  At  its 
root  lies  the  deep  conviction  of  the  religious  duty  of 
training  to  full  and  harmonious  development  all  the 
faculties,  bodily  and  mental,  with  whicb  ±ka  child  is 
endowed  by  nature ;  hence  its  progress  is  like  organic 
growth,  rather  than  the  thing  of  rules  and  conven- 
tionalities that  education  is  too  generally  suffered  to  be. 

It  may  in  general  terms  be  described  as  an  inward 
method,  in  contrast  with  ordinary  methods  which  are 
mostly  outward.  The  latter  treat  a  child  as  a  creature 


SEC.  iv.]  FROBEL' s  PRINCIPLES  29 

who  is  to  be  made  to  do  and  to  learn  such  and  such 
things  according  to  set  rules;  the  former  views  each 
child  as  a  creature  of  indefinite  capability  for  doing  and 
learning,  but  whose  owi  »stincts  and  desires  must  be 
turned  towards  the  things  we  deem  desirable.  The 
ordinary  educator  has  a  standard  of  attainment  before 
his  eyes  which  his  pupils  must  reach ;  Frobel  also  has 
a  standard,  not  of  attainment  for  a  given  age,  but  of 
full  and  perfect  development  of  humanity ;  and  he 
studies  the  tendencies  of  childhood,  and  the  ap  itudes 
of  each  child,  in  order  to  bend  his  efforts  towafdv»  draw 
ing  them  out  and  giving  them  a  right  direction.  And 
the  same  with  moral  training ;  the  one  orders  conduct, 
the  other  cultivates  motives ;  the  one  teaches  cate- 
chisms to  little  children,  the  other  opens  their  eyes  to 
see  beauty  and  goodness,  and  leads  the  heart  to  God. 
The  one  uses  habit,  the  great  power  of  education,  as  an 
outward  constraint,  the  other  as  an  inward  regulator; 
the  one  hates  a  lie  as  much  as  the  other,  but  Frobel 
brings  intellectual  habits  and  associations  to  aid  the 
moral  precept,  and  makes  clearness  and  accuracy  so 
essential  to  the  child's  daily  enjoyment  of  his  games 
and  occupations,  that  all  the  byways  to  untruth,  such 
as  exaggeration,  confusedness  of  mind,  inaccuracy  of 
speech,  are  cut  off.  As  far  as  the  child's  horizon 
extends,  he  sees  clearly  and  speaks  plainly,  and  this 
atmosphere  of  intellectual  truth  in  which  he  lives  is 
favourable  to  the  growth  of  moral  rectitude. 

It  is  common  to  look  upon  the  Kinder-garten  as 
merely  another  form  of  the  infant-school,  —  a  better 
system  of  teaching  little  children ;  it  is  this,  but  it  is 
much  more  ;  it  is  the  first  step  in  a  wide  connected 


30  FROBEL'S  PRINCIPLES  [SEC.  rv. 

system  of  education,  the  first  working  of  principles 
which  continue  to  work  throughout  childhood  and 
youth  till  the  educator  has  finished  his  task,  and 
resigns  it  to  the  hands  of  those  whom  he  has  led  to 
consider  self-culture  a  task  that  closes  only  when  the 
final  close  falls  upon  all  earthly  endeavour.  This 
vastness  of  purpose,  contrasted  with  the  narrow  limits 
of  an  infant-school,  increases  the  difficulty  of  explain- 
ing the  Kinder-garten  system ;  its  practical  method 
is  for  little  children,  but  every  educational  aim  points 
beyond  them  to  the  period  when  fuller  knowledge  may 
be  sought,  and  fuller  development  of  faculty  becomes 
possible. 

It  is  because  Frobel's  system  is  one  of  development 
and  direction,  rather  than  of  teaching  in  the  ordinary 
sense,  that  he  begins  his  study  of  child-nature  at  such 
an  early  period.  The  first  dawn  of  intelligence,  the 
first  active  tendencies  and  desires  must  be  watched  and 
tended,  and  thus  education  begins  not  in  the  Kinder- 
garten even,  but  in  the  nursery.  Frobel  is  not  intent 
upon  giving,  but  upon  drawing  out,  all  that  lies  in 
germ  in  the  infant  nature.  He  does  not  believe  that 
education  can  do  more  than  aid  and  direct  the  natural 
development  and  provide  the  right  food  for  the  mental 
growth  ;  but  he  affirms  that  this  work  of  unfolding  and 
directing  is  alone  education,  and  that  consequently  if 
the  infant  years  are  wasted,  if  the  budding  powers,  the 
first  desires  and  active  instincts  of  the  young  creature 
are  left  undirected,  the  good  or  the  evil  fruit  will  hence- 
forth depend  on  circumstances  mostly  beyond  the  edu- 
cator's control.  His  system  of  early  training  does,  as 
we  have  seen,  lead  to  no  insignificant  progress  in  mere 


SEC.  rv.]  FROBEL'S  PRINCIPLES  31 

instruction,  considering  the  age  of  the  pupils,  but  such 
instruction  is  the  means,  not  the  end  ;  the  real  purpose 
is  the  harmonious  unfolding  of  the  child's  whole  nature 
with  a  view  to  free  self-development  and  action. 

Freedom  and  action  are  more  valued  by  Frobel  than 
by  educators  generally.  He  has  none  of  that  fear  of 
vigorous  character  and  sturdy  will,  which  created  the 
old  systems  of  home  and  school  discipline,  and  the  con- 
venient prejudice  that  feebleness  is  womanly ;  but  the 
freedom  that  he  strives  to  place  his  pupils  in  possession 
of,  he  leads  them  to  exercise  within  the  moral  bounds 
of  conscience,  love,  and  reverence,  within  the  intellec- 
tual bounds  laid  down  by  reason  and  the  sense  of 
harmony  and  beauty  which  every  Kinder-garten  game 
tends  to  associate  with  active  enjoyment.  Frobel  exacts 
obedience  as  rigidly  as  any  other  rational  educator ;  but 
he  leads  the  child  first  to  feel,  and  then  to  know,  that 
obedience  to  higher  wisdom  is  part  of  the  order  of 
nature  in  which  he  lives.  Freedom  and  law  are  not 
in  opposition  for  the  child  any  more  than  for  the  man, 
since  settled  law  is  the  foundation  of  permanent  freedom. 

Action  in  conduct  and  in  work  is  the  practical  ex- 
pression at  once  of  the  character  and  of  the  intellect, 
which  find  little  room  to  show  themselves  in  ordinary 
systems  of  instruction ;  thus  all  Kinder-garten  teaching 
ends  in  work — the  pupil  must  reproduce  what  he  has 
learnt,  he  must  express  his  own  thoughts  or  fancies 
through  the  medium  of  the  various  exercises  I  have 
enumerated ;  and  the  habit  of  independent  work  daily 
strengthens  will  and  steadfastness  of  purpose,  without 
which  a  child  may  at  times  be  easier  to  manage,  but  the 
absence  of  which  makes  the  man  or  woman  useless  for 


32  FROBEL'S  PRINCIPLES  [SEC.  rv. 

the  duties  of  life.  In  proportion  as  conduct  covers  a 
far  larger  portion  of  human  life  than  abstract  thought 
or  knowledge,  so  does  Frobel  value  the  child's  work — 
honest,  accurate  work — beyond  his  progress  in  infor- 
mation. Work,  which  is  the  bread-winning  necessity 
for  the  mass  of  every  nation,  he  considers  to  be  also  the 
right  engine  of  mental  and  physical  development  for  all 
mankind.  Men  who  cannot  reproduce  the  image  that 
has  struck  them,  or  embody  the  thought  that  possesses 
them,  are,  according  to  Frobel's  view,  maimed  of  their 
just  proportions.  He  would  have  the  hand  no  less 
dextrous,  the  eye  no  less  accurate,  than  the  judgment  is 
sure  ;  hence  his  extreme  value  for  drawing  and  modell- 
ing. The  test  with  him  of  a  child's  thorough  appre- 
hension is  that  the  fact  or  image  apprehended  shall  be 
reproduced  in  /07m,  if  such  as  to  be  capable  of  being  so 
represented,  or  at  least  in  accurate  language.  It  is  the 
teacher's  business  to  present  no  ideas  or  objects  to  the 
child's  mind  that  are  beyond  his  power  of  clear  appre- 
hension. The  highest  thought  to  which  he  can  be  led, 
that  of  God's  love  and  goodness,  comes  to  him  in  the 
clear  intelligible  form  of  fatherly  care  and  wisdom. 

Most  educational  reformers,  since  Pestalozzi,  had 
recognised  the  value  of  manual  labour  as  part  of  the 
training  of  youth,  but  they  failed  by  keeping  the  work 
and  the  instruction  too  much  apart;  while  Frobel  so 
orders  the  work  that  it  becomes  itself  the  instrument 
of  instruction,  as  we  have  seen  in  the  construction  of 
figures  with  the  cubes  and  bricks.  The  child  must 
produce,  must  express  his  own  fancy  with  the  materials 
before  him ;  but  while  he  does  so  he  is  learning  the  first 
principles  of  symmetrical  order  and  of  geometry.  He 


SEC.  rv.]  FROBEL'S  PRINCIPLES  33 

is  exercising  his  senses,  acquiring  steadiness  of  hand 
and  accuracy  of  eye,  but  he  is  also  gaming  the  elements 
of  positive  knowledge. 

If  now,  after  this  review  of  Frobel's  principles,  we  go 
back  to  the  games  and  exercises  before  described,  we 
shall  see  that  they  tend  to  forward  each  of  the  objects 
he  deemed  important,  and  to  harmonise  them  all.  In 
each  part  we  may  see  that  the  natural  impulse  or 
capacity  has  first  been  studied,  and  the  practical  method 
so  ordered  as  to  unfold  and  direct  it  to  the  higher  aims 
of  life. 

The  earliest  mental  manifestations  in  the  infant  are 
the  notice  he  takes  of  surrounding  objects,  and  the  desire 
for  activity,  shown  first  in  mere  movements  of  the 
limbs,  and  next  in  play ;  hence  Frobel  uses  play  as  the 
means  of  directing  the  activity  in  the  right  channel,  and 
by  means  of  games,  such  as  those  of  the  balls  and  cubes, 
and  afterwards  by  various  exercises,  employs  the  active 
propensity  and  prepares  it  for  real  work. 

The  next  faculty  that  Frobel  takes  advantage  of,  is 
the  instinct  of  curiosity,  so  strong  in  children,  that 
before  they  can  speak  they  may  be  seen  trying  every 
limb  and  sense  in  the  effort  to  make  nearer  acquaintance 
with  some  new  object  ;  accordingly  in  the  Kinder-garten 
new  objects  are  successively  presented  in  such  a  manner 
that  the  natural  instinct  is  gradually  developed  into  a 
habit  of  inquiry,  the  first  foundation  of  love  of  know- 
ledge. And  each  new  thing  learnt,  having  been  ac- 
quired, not  by  an  effort  of  memory,  but  by  the  exercise 
of  the  child's  own  observation  and  understanding,  is  a 
real  step  in  advance.  It  may  be  infinitesimally  small, 
but  it  remains  an  acquisition  for  ever,  and  a  sure  founda- 

c 


34  FKOBEL'S  PRINCIPLES  [SEC.  iv. 

tion  for  the  next  step.  Side  by  side  with  curiosity 
the  faculty  of  observation  is  developed.  Roused  at 
first  by  the  perception  of  light,  and  colour,  and  motion, 
it  is  gradually  led  in  Frb'bel's  games  to  dwell  on  form 
and  other  properties  of  the  objects  presented,  as,  for 
instance,  with  the  cubes  and  cylinders,  and  afterwards 
through  the  various  exercises  which  bring  new  forms 
to  view  or  new  properties,  such  as  magnitude  and 
numbers. 

The  senses  are  naturally  cultivated  in  children  by  all 
that  attracts  their  observation — the  eye,  the  ear,  the 
touch,  are  learning  many  a  lesson  before  the  child  can  run 
or  speak,  and  there  is  evident  pleasure  in  the  exercise. 
Frobel  takes  advantage  of  this  sense  of  enjoyment,  and 
trains  the  senses  to  accuracy  and  delicacy  through  a  series 
of  games  in  which  the  children  delight,  by  the  various 
kinds  of  work  in  which  they  exercise  their  own  inge- 
nuity, and  especially  by  drawing,  which  he  held  in  such 
high  value  in  almost  every  department  of  active  training. 
If  we  watch  little  children  when  they  first  begin  to  run 
about  and  play  together,  we  see  that-  they  naturally 
follow  the  lead,  and  have  a  sense  of  fitness  and  order  in 
doing  so  with  a  certain  regularity.  Marked  recurring 
intervals, for  instance,  for  particular  words  or  movements, 
excite  pleasure.  Frobel  seizes  upon  this  natural  sense, 
and  makes  it  serve  the  important  purpose  of  preserving 
strict  order  in  the  games  he  established.  Children  recog- 
nise the  law,  learn  to  feel  the  help  it  gives  in  play,  and 
are  more  ready  to  own  it  in  whatever  thing  they  have  to 
do.  Children  love  and  seek  companionship  :  the  instinct 
of  sympathy  is  strong,  though  so  often  crossed  by  the 
selfish  instinct.  Frobel  orders  every  game  and  lesson 


SEC.  iv.]  FROBEL'S  PRINCIPLES  35 

so  that  they  impart  the  sense  of  a  something  in  common 
among  the  children — something  that  would  be  marred 
if  disunion,  or  ill-humour,  or  rudeness,  forced  the  little 
companions  apart. 

Finally,  the  sense  of  beauty,  as  much  a  part  of  the 
child's  nature  as  the  active  instinct,  shown  at  first  in 
delight  at  bright  colours  or  the  flame  of  a  candle,  is 
gently  fostered  and  directed  from  beauty  of  colour  to 
that  of  form  and  symmetry,  as  by  the  construction  of 
regular  figures  with  bricks,  and  the  different  kinds  of 
artistic  work  ;  to  harmony  of  sound  and  rhythm  of  move- 
ment, by  means  of  the  songs  and  dances ;  to  the  love- 
liness of  nature  and  the  wonder  of  her  operations  which 
garden  work  keeps  ever  present  to  eye  and  mind, 
and  thence  by  easy  transition  to  the  beauty  of  moral 
action,  such  as  comes  within  childish  apprehension, — 
unselfishness,  courage,  help  given  to  the  feeble  and  the 
sick ;  till,  little  by  little,  reverence  for  more  perfect 
goodness  and  power,  which  are  felt  to  surround  and 
shelter  the  child's  life,  becomes  the  foundation  of  religious 
love  and  trust. 

Thus,  through  the  whole  field  of  infant  education, 
every  natural  tendency  is  watched  ;  and  as  it  unfolds  in 
the  genial  atmosphere  of  love  and  care,  it  is  so  directed 
that  habit  and  association  shall  cement  each  step  of  pro- 
gress made,  and  prepare  the  path  for  the  future. 

'The  object  of  education,'  says  one  of  Frobel's  ablest 
commentators,  '  is  to  bring  man  into  the  most  complete 
harmony  with  God  and  Nature  ;'*  and  the  system  of  the 

*  Hanschmann,  Friedrich  Frobel,  die  Entwickelung  seine  Erzie- 
hungsidee  in  seinem  Leben,  p.  169. 


36  FROBEL'S  SYSTEM  FOR  [SEC.  v. 

Kinder-garten  was  framed  to  facilitate  the  first  steps  in 
that  great  life-long  endeavour. 


SECTION   V. 

» 

Frobels  System  in  relation  to  ordinary  Schools* 

ONE  of  the  objections  that  must  be  met  in  recommend- 
ing the  Kinder-garten  for  young  children  is  the  difficulty 
of  carrying  the  pupils  from  this  to  ordinary  school 
instruction.  It  is  the  only  real  difficulty  that  occurs  in 
the  wide  application  of  Frobel's  system,  and  even  this 
is  easily  overcome  by  those  who  have  grasped  the  real 
spirit  of  the  method  -\  for  the  latter,  being  founded  on 
the  actual  facts  ofimman  nature,  must  evidently  be  no 
less  true  in  principle,  though  not  in  external  form,  for 
one  age  as  for  another.  Thus,  although  games  with 
balls  and  cubes  and  sticks  are  adapted  only  to  infant 
intelligence,  yet  the  habit  of  observing  resemblances 
and  differences,  of  testing  facts  by  experience,  is  no  less 
valuable  when  pursuing  the  most  abstruse  study.  The 
Kinder-garten  has  dealt  with  the  concrete  only,  it  has 
given  object-lessons  in  the  truest  sense  of  the  word  ; 
but  it  has  taught  the  correct  name  for  every  fact, 
and  the  habit  of  accurate  language  is  the  foundation  of 

*  Th«  subject  of  this  section  has  been  dealt  with  separately  in  a 
pamphlet  by  Miss  Shirreff,  called  "The  Kinder-garten  in  relation  to 
Schools,"  published  two  years  ago.  Lately,  another  pamphlet  by  the 
same  writer,  has,  by  mistake,  been  published  with  nearly  the  same 
title,  but  its  scope  is  different.  Its  object  is  to  explain  and  elucidate 
Mde.  de  Portugall's  synoptical  table  of  F  rebel's  System,  one  of  the 
most  valuable  contributors  to  Kinder-garten  literature,  showing  the 
connection  of  every  portion  of  the  early  training  with  the  fullest 
development  later  education  can  reach. 


SEC.  V.]  ORDINARY  SCHOOLS  37 

scientific  teaching  and  of  accurate  thought.  (Frobel 
begins  at  the  very  lowest  germ  of  intelligence  ;  but  as 
he  always  teaches  a  truth,  or  leads  the  child  to  observe 
truly,  he  is  always  laying  the  sure  ground  for  fuller 
instruction  in  the  future.  The  child  has  much  to  learn 
as  he  goes  from  the  Kinder-garten  to  school,  but  he  has 
absolutely  nothing  to  unlearn  ;  and  that  fact  covers  so 
large  a  ground  on  which  time  and  faculties  are  gene- 
rally wasted,  that  it  alone  would  be  sufficient  to  make  the 
Kinder-garten  pupil  acceptable  to  his  schoolmaster,  even 
did  he  bring  no  other  recommendation. 

The  great  difficulty  is  to  pass  from  the  concrete  to  the 
abstract — from  object-lessons  to  working  by  rules  and 
formulae,  of  grammar  and  arithmetic.  But  it  must  be 
remembered  that  the  step  thus  taken  is  in  the  direction 
of  natural  development  ;  and  we  carry  with  us  the  daily 
unfolding  power  of  the  intelligence  carefully  trained 
to  habits  that  make  the  transition  comparatively  easy. 
Also  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  as  regards  arithmetic, 
the  Kinder-garten  pupil  has  already  made  unusual  pro- 
gress. In  the  work  he  has  been  trained  to  do,  every 
artistic  lesson  has  had  a  geometrical  or  arithmetical 
object  likewise ;  he  has  accurately  learned  many  facts 
concerning  numbers,  and  their  relation  to  one  another; 
he  can  perform  correctly  and  understand  clearly  the 
meaning  of  the  four  first  operations  of  arithmetic. 
Working  by  rules  will  therefore  simply  be  a  different 
method  of  going  over  the  old  ground.  But  he  has  per- 
formed these  operations  with  fractions  as  well  as  with 
units,  and  thus  is  familiar  with  what  in  the  ordinary 
method  he  would  not  approach  till  much  later.  So 
likewise  with  geometry,  of  which  the  foundation  has 


38  FROBEL'S  SYSTEM  FOR  [SEC.  v. 

been  so  accurately  laid  in  the  games  and  exercises,  and 
the  correct  terms  been  rendered  so  familiar,  that  the 
child  is  ripe  for  learning  what  generally  is  reserved  for 
a  much  later  period.  Here,  as  at  other  stages  of  men- 
tal growth,  clear  perception  leads  to  true  conception ; 
and  the  child  who  has  daily  practised  certain  operations 
in  the  concrete,  will  quickly  apprehend  the  rules  and 
formulae  as  the  convenient  expressions  by  which  pre- 
viously acquired  knowledge  is  summed  up  and  made 
fit  to  reason  upon  in  the  acquisition  of  further  knowledge. 
Kinder-garten  training  does  not  prepare  so  directly  for 
grammar  as  for  mathematics,  but  it  possesses  no  small 
advantages  even  here.  Children  accustomed  always  to 
use  the  correct  term  for  what  they  are  dealing  with,  to 
feel  so  strongly  the  necessity  of  understanding  what 
they  do,  or  what  is  before  them,  that  they  must  ask  the 
meaning  of  the  terms  they  use  and  the  operations  they 
perform,  will  easily  be  led  to  seek  for  themselves  why 
words  should  be  used  in  one  order  rather  than  another, 
which  word  in  a  given  sentence  denotes  a  thing,  which 
other  an  action,  and  which  again  marks  the  time,  or  the 
place,  or  the  quality  of  the  thing  they  are  speaking  of. 
Thus  they  will  learn  to  distinguish  the  parts  of  speech 
from  a  sort  of  necessity  of  their  own  minds  ;  and  the 
analysis  of  sentences  will  precede  the  rules  of  grammar. 
With  geography  and  history  the  same  advantage  will  be 
felt ;  the  early  topographical  observations  he  has  been 
led  to  make  around  him — the  form  of  the  garden  or  the 
pond ;  the  stream  always  running  one  way  ;  the  wider 
view  obtained  by  climbing  up  the  hill ;  the  sun  some- 
times shining  on  one  side  of  the  house,  sometimes  on  the 
other ;  the  moon  occasionally  lighting  him  up  to  bed, 


SEC.  V.]  ORDINARY  SCHOOLS  39 

while  at  other  times  bright  stars  shine  alone  in  the 
darkened  heavens ; — all  these  things,  which  the  child  has 
observed,  has  thought  and  asked  about  again  and  again, 
and  learned  to  speak  of  in  accurate  language,  afford  so 
many  links  by  which  the  physical  geography  of  wider 
regions  becomes  easily  knit  to  his  experience  and  in- 
terest. The  little  stories  that  he  has  listened  to  have 
never  been  without  a  purpose.  Where  they  have  not 
related  to  facts  of  natural  history,  they  have  touched 
upon  conduct,  upon  the  lives  of  good  men — later  on  of 
great  men,  whose  goodness  or  power  had  a  wider  field. 
The  stories  are  necessarily  interrupted,  because  the 
child's  ignorance  prevents  his  understanding  more, 
and  each  such  interruption  in  a  child  so  trained  leads 
to  a  desire  to  shake  off  the  ignorance,  and  to  take  interest 
in  that  wide  region  he  begins  dimly  to  see  beyond. 

Thus  the  transition  from  Kinder-garten  exercises  to 
school  instruction  is  not  a  difficult  one,  as  I  said  before, 
in  the  hands  of  those  who  thoroughly  understand  the 
system ;  though,  if  children  were  taken  from  the 
Kinder-garten  and  suddenly  thrown  into  the  midst  of 
ordinary  school  teaching,  doubtless  there  would  ensue  a 
period  of  arrest  and  confusion.  'Education  according 
to  nature  is  impossible  without  harmony  between  the 
treatment  of  the  earliest  years  with  that  of  later  periods, 
for  Nature  knows  no  chasms;  she  ever  prepares  the 
later  development  through  that  which  went  before.'* 
It  is,  therefore,  essential  that  the  '  transition  classes ' 
(vermittelung'sKlasse),  as  Frobel  calls  them,  should  be  a 
recognised  senior  department  of  the  Kinder-garten ; 

*  Mde.  von  Marenholtz  Bulow,  p.  107. 


FEOBEL'S  SYSTEM  FOR 


[SEC.  v. 


that  children,  in  short,  instead  of  leaving  the  latter  at 
seven  or  eight  years  old,  should  pass  into  that  department 
for  a  year  at  least,  and  not  go  to  school  till  they 
have  grown  accustomed  to  learn  from  books  as  well  as 
from  objects.  In  these  classes  they  would  learn  to 
read  and  to  write,  both  operations  being  immensely 
facilitated  by  the  habit  of  remarking  resemblances  and 
differences  of  form,  and  of  constructing  lines  and  figures 
of  various  kinds.  The  little  hand  has  already,  through 
the  Kiuder-garten  exercises,  acquired  steadiness  enough 
to  guide  the  pen,  and  the  eye  so  much  accuracy 
that  not  only  letters,  but  words  will  be  easily  recognised. 
In  these  classes,  also,  the  early  lessons  of  drawing  will 
be  continued,  and  attention  still  be  fixed  upon  natural 
objects  and  the  facts  that  belong  to  them,  which  here- 
after will  form  the  groundwork  of  instruction  in  physics 
or  natural  history.  Not  only  in  this  manner  does 
Frobel  consider  that  a  child  is  prepared  to  make  good 
use  of  learning,  but  that  he  will  come  to  school  studies 
with  so  much  mental  preparation  that  it  shall  be  pos- 
sible to  shorten  the  hours  usually  devoted  to  certain 
necessary  subjects,  so  far  as  to  leave  time  for  drawing, 
for  the  more  advanced  study  of  physics  and  natural 
history,  and  for  the  development  of  manual  dexterity 
and  aesthetic  feeling,  whether  in  plastic  art  or  in  mere 
handicraft.  Frobel  would  consider  the  early  education 
to  have  been  thwarted  and  made  useless,  if  the  youth 
were  not  trained  to  the  exercise  of  his  bodily  senses  and 
faculties,  as  fully  as  the  child  was  so  trained  in  the 
Kinder-garten.  If  book-learning  stilled  in  him  the 
active  creative  power  which  was  to  Frobel,  as  com- 
pletely as  the  reasoning  faculty,  the  stamp  of  true 


SEC.  V.]  ORDINARY  SCHOOLS  41 

humanity,  education  would  in  his  view  be  a  failure. 
'  The  present  generation,'  he  said,  '  sickens  through 
knowledge,  and  can  only  he  made  sound  through  action/ 
Thus  stated,  the  opinion  might  at  once  be  objected  to  as 
applying  to  Germany  only,  not  to  England,  where  action 
is  always  valued,  even  too  much  above  knowledge;  yet 
it  is  in  one  sense  true  for  us  also.  Direct  education 
with  us  also  is  intellectual  only;  morally  it  is  due  to 
indirect  influences,  and  as  regards  action  it  is  left  to  the 
play-ground.  The  physical  development  in  Frobel's 
method,  the  training  of  hand  and  eye,  of  all  the  limbs 
and  all  the  senses,  is  systematically  ordered  towards  a 
definite  purpose  ;  while  the  active  exercise  is  intellectual 
as  well  as  physical.  Both  are  truly  educational ;  and 
the  practical  judgment,  which  is  their  result,  will  be 
based  on  true  principles. 

Hence  the  feeling  which  all  Frobel's  disciples  share, 
that  much  reading  is  not  advisable  for  the  young.  They 
hold,  even  more  than  other  educators,  that  development 
of  the  mental  faculties,  not  the  acquisition  of  knowledge, 
is  the  purpose  of  education.  'With  us/  says  Mde.. 
Yon  Marenholtz  Bulow,  'childhood  sickens,  under  the 
early  over-pressure  of  the  understanding,  and  the  want 
of  opportunity  for  bodily  and  creative  activity,  which 
cultivates  the  will  and  power  of  action.  .  .  .  Learning 
too  early  and  too  much,  that  is,  too  much  for  the  power 
of  working  out  the  knowledge,  the  preponderance  of 
receptivity,  with  almost  entire  absence  of  production, 
with  no  opportunity  for  practical  realisation — this  leaves 
no  room  for  the  fresh,  full,  natural  life  which  is  proper 
to  childhood  and  youth/*  It  is  accordingly  an  object 
*  "Hie  Arbeit  und  die  neue  Erziehung,  p.  40. 


FROBEL'S  SYSTEM  FOR 


[SEC.  v. 


of  the  Frobel  method  to  hinder  the  ripening  of  the 
reasoning  and  critical  faculty  without  corresponding 
practical  activity.  'Independent  action  must  be  the 
preparation  for  independent  thought/ 

For  all  these  reasons  it  is  well  that  children  should 
begin  ordinary  school  studies  upon  the  Kinder-garten 
principle ;  and,  lastly,  it  is  well  that  this  should  be  so,  ' 
because  teachers  imbued  with  Frobel's  doctrines  alone 
feel  the  deep  power  of  that  simultaneous  cultivation  of 
the  child's  whole  nature,  of  which  the  foundation  is  laid 
in  the  Kinder-garten.  They  alone  have  studied  how  to 
bind  the  aesthetic  and  moral  training  with  the  intellectual 
development,  and  feel  that  only  so  combined  does  either 
produce  its  full  fruits.  Until  this  shall  become  the  ac- 
knowledged aim  of  all  education,  it  is  well  at  least  to 
keep  the  child  while  we  can  under  these  vivifying 
influences,  to  lead  him  on  so  far,  at  least,  in  the  right 
direction,  that  he  shall  be  sensible  of  some  unnatural 
discord  when  the  too  common  tone  of  schools  and  of 
ordinary  life  reveals  to  him  that  knowledge  and  good- 
ness are  not  always  found  together,  and  that  even  good 
and  clever  men  can  deform  human  life  by  the  absence 
of  all  that  sense  of  beauty  which  has  been  to  him,  since 
lie  could  first  see  and  feel,  an  essential  element  of 
happiness.  The  shock  may  be  rude  to  the  poor  child 
who  awakes  thus  in  another  world,  as  it  were,  from  that 
in  which  his  own  faculties  opened  to  life ;  but  the  very 
change  may  enhance  the  beauty  of  the  former  experience ; 
and,  as  far  away  from  home  the  unforgotten  accents  of 
our  native  tongue  ring  as  music  in  our  ears,  so  the 
children,  turned  out  from  their  garden  of  Paradise  into 
the  wilderness  of  common  life,  may  perchance  bear  all 


SEC.  V.]  ORDINARY  SCHOOLS  43 

the  more  closely  in  their  hearts  the  memory  of  that 
holy  triad  of  beauty,  goodness,  and  truth,  whose  ex- 
quisite harmony  was  ever  present  in  the  teaching  that 
guided  their  earliest  steps  ;  and  whose  influence  may 
strengthen  and  refresh  them  through  many  a  later  hour 
of  trying  contact  with  that  lower  state  of  things  which 
•tye  venture  to  call  civilisation. 


SECTION   VI. 

FrobeVs  System  in  Relation  to  Industrial  Training 
and  the  Life  of  the  People 

IF  I  have  succeeded  in  convincing  the  reader  that  the 
difficulty  of  introducing  Kinder-garten  pupils  to  ordi- 
nary school  life,  of  bridging  over  the  chasm  between 
instruction  through  objects,  and  instruction  through 
books,  is  one  easily  surmounted,  and  that  the  child  who 
has  enjoyed  that  early  training  will  come  so  well  pre- 
pared to  make  the  best  kind  of  progress  in  actual  study, 
that  it  little  matters  though  the  latter  be  somewhat 
deferred — it  will  be  evident  that,  as  regards  the  cul- 
tivated classes  of  a  nation,  the  groundwork  laid  in  the 
Kinder-garten  is  altogether  advantageous.  "We  have 
now  to  consider  what  it  does  for  those  whose  position 
excludes  them  from  later  culture,  and  who  must  early 
in  life  be  trained  to  industrial  arts,  or  even  be  content 
with  receiving  no  mental  training  at  all  after  the  years 
spent  in  elementary  schools. 


44  FROBEL'S  SYSTEM  ix  DELATION  TO       [SEC.  vi. 

This  is  in  one  sense  the  most  important  side  of  the 
question,  because  affecting  the  widest  phase  of  cational 
life.  Frobel's  system  would  still  be  invaluable,  even  if 
it  were  fitted  only  for  those  who  will  have  the  means 
of  later  culture;  but  it  could  lay  no  claim  to  being  a 
system  of  true  human  education,  because  it  would  lack 
the  element  of  universality,  which  must  be  the  charac- 
teristic of  the  latter.  This,  however,  is  just  what  Fro- 
bel's  system  does  possess;  it  belongs  to  no  class  or 
nation,  but  to  all.  Wherever  children  are  to  be  found 
endowed  with  ordinary  human  faculties,  those  faculties, 
moral,  intellectual,  and  physical,  are  capable  of  being 
directed  so  as  to  ensure  their  harmonious  development. 
No  normally  constituted  human  creature  is  incapable 
of  being  led  to  observe  nature,  to  apprehend  facts  cor- 
rectly, to  exercise  bodily  activity  and  manual  dexterity, 
to  admire  beauty,  to  love  goodness,  to  revere  God. 
Such  direction,  then,  which  is  the  aim  of  Frobel's  sys- 
tem, is  a  universal  foundation  of  education ;  and  it  is 
further  evident  that  the  less  chance  an}T  young  creature 
has  to  share  the  treasure  of  culture  hereafter,  the  more 
needful  is  it  that  this,  which  can  be  made  a  universal 
heritage,  should  be  secured  to  him  early. 

Again,  if  the  Kinder-garten  training  can,  as  I  showed 
in  the  last  paper,  facilitate  the  after- w7ork  of  school, 
leaving  time  for  other  instruction,  none  can  require  it 
so  much  as  those  children  to  whom  a  few  years  of 
elementary  teaching  will  be  the  whole  of  intellectual 
education,  who  must  begin  practical  life  at  an  age  when 
other  children  are  under  tuition,  and  will  ever  after 
have  scanty  leisure  to  add  to  their  small  stock  of  know- 
ledge. Every  new  facility  for  culture  that  can  be  given 


SEC.  VI.]  INDUSTRIAL  TRAINING,  ETC.  45 

to  this  class  is  immensely  more  valuable  than  to  the 
more  fortunate  minority,  who  can  extend  their  educa- 
tion over  ten  more  years  of  life,  and  can  always  com- 
mand the  best  sources  of  knowledge,  and  the  tuition 
that  will  make  those  sources  available.  In  elementary 
education,  therefore,  Frobel's  system  answers  to  a  want 
that  is  daily  more  felt,  as  we  strive  too  often  in  vain  to 
cram  the  barest  elements  of  knowledge  into  the  few 
years  the  poor  man  can  give  to  his  child's  mental 
improvement.  The  London  School  Board  has  •recog- 
nised the  value  of  Frobel's  method  of  early  training, 
by  appointing  Miss  Lyschinska  to  introduce  a  know- 
ledge of  the  Kinder-garten  system  among  the  infant 
school  teachers ;  and  earlier  still,  the  authorities  of  the 
Stockwell  Training  College  showed  the  same  apprecia- 
tion by  their  appointment  of  Miss  Heerwart  as  direc- 
tress of  a  complete  Kinder-garten  branch  of  their  college 
work.  The  danger  attending  these  measures,  however 
valuable  they  are  as  first  steps,  and  as  indications  of 
a  growing  sense  of  the  value  of  Frobel's  principles,  is, 
lest  the  system  should  be  judged  by  what  must  be 
the  very  slight  results  to  be  so  obtained.  In  nothing, 
perhaps,  is  a  little  proficiency  so  dangerous  as  in  this, 
because  it  is  so  easy  to  make  the  practice  seem  perfect, 
while  the  principles  to  which  the  practice  owes  all  its 
value  are  ignored.  As  I  have  before  remarked  (p.  7), 
if  the  children's  games  are  mere  games  to  the  teacher 
also,  the  whole  thing  is  educationally  useless. 

The  children  of  the  poor  will  not  probably  in  a  given 
time  profit  as  much  by  the  Kinder-garten  exercises  as 
the  children  of  more  favoured  classes,  whose  home 
habits  have  made  good  language  familiar,  have  intro- 


46  FROBEL'S  SYSTEM  IN  RELATION  TO       [SEC.  vi. 

duced  them  to  a  larger  vocabulary,  and  given  them 
the  use  of  many  things  which  may  have  refined  the 
sense  of  touch,  and  enlarged  their  perceptions ;  for  as 
every  hour  of  life  is  training  the  mere  infant  in  one 
way  or  another,  all  its  surroundings  are,  with  or  with- 
out purpose  or  method,  influencing  the  future  educa- 
tion ;  but  this  is  only  another  reason  why  Kinder-garten 
training  is  doubly  essential  to  the  poor  child  who  de- 
pends for  his  entire  mental  culture  on  what  he  gets  out 
of  home. 

The  passage  from  object-lessons  to  ordinary  school 
lessons  may  in  like  manner  be  perhaps  more  laborious 
to  the  poor  man's  child  than  to  the  better  nurtured,  for 
there  is  less  nimbleness  of  intellect,  if  we  may  so  ex- 
press it,  when  the  traditions  of  culture  are  wanting; 
but  when  this  difficulty  is  overcome,  the  advantage  pos- 
sessed by  the  Kinder-garten  pupil  over  a  child  taught 
in  the  ordinary  infant  school  becomes  apparent.  The 
two  children  may  be  about  equal  in  reading,  writing, 
and  arithmetic ;  but  the  one  gets  through  his  tasks 
laboriously,  and  can  do  nothing  else,  while  we  find  the 
other,  whose  eyes,  hands,  and  powers  of  observation 
have  been  carefully  exercised  through  various  channels, 
doing  them  easily  and  intelligently. 

He  will  then  make  progress  so  much  more  rapidly 
that  in  the  same  period  spent  at  school  there  will  be 
ample  time  to  give  him  instruction  of  a  wider  kind  or 
higher  order,  which  may  lay  the  foundation  of  really 
intelligent  tastes  for  after  years,  while  his  companion  is 
still  struggling  with  the  difficulties  which  perhaps  at 
last  prevent  his  passing  the  requisite  standard  before 
the  overwhelming  necessities  of  life  call  him  to  exclu- 


SEC.  VI.]  INDUSTRIAL  TRAINING,  ETC.  47 

give  manual  toil.  Even  if  the  required  point  has  been 
reached,  the  boy  is  in  a  state  of  intellectual  destitution, 
that  gives  small  hopes  of  his  making  any  future  use  of 
his  school  acquirements.  He  has  learned  to  read,  but 
he  has  had  no  pleasure  from  knowledge.  He  has 
learned  to  write,  but  his  hand  is  too  stiff  and  clumsy  to 
make  the  exercise  anything  but  a  laborious  effort.  He 
has  learned  to  work  rules  of  arithmetic,  but  he  knows 
nothing  of  the  relations  of  numbers,  that  give  an  inte- 
rest to  the  dry  cyphering.  The  possibility,  as  regards 
time,  of  including  drawing  in  the  elementary  school 
course  was  a  few  months  ago  a  matter  of  discussion  at 
the  London  School  Board,  the  difficulty  already  felt  of 
meeting  the  legal  requirements  being  strongly  urged 
against  such  an  addition.  But  Kinder-garten  pupils 
would  come  to  school  with  eyes  and  fingers  already 
trained  for  drawing,  and,  as  I  said  above,  with  so  much 
facility  for  the  usual  lessons,  that  time  may  be  spared 
for  their  other  studies,  bodily  exercises,  and  manual 
arts,  begun  in  the  Kinder-garten,  thus  completing  the 
scanty  teaching  of  the  elementary  school.  Under  such 
a  system  the  labourer's  child  would  acquire,  in  addition 
to  the  usual  school  learning,  such  a  foundation  of  draw- 
ing, geometry,  and  natural  history,  so  much  habit  of 
observing  nature,  and  of  inquiring  into  what  he  observes, 
that  his  working  life  would  begin  from  an  altogether 
higher  level  of  intelligence.  What  his  hand  has  to  do 
he  will  do  with  care  and  precision  ;  what  is  before  his 
eyes  he  will  observe  with  accuracy  and  discrimination  ; 
and  what  amusements  he  seeks  we  ma}7  fairly  hope  will 
be  beyond  the  pale  of  the  public-house. 

1  have  seemed  here  to  speak  of  boys  only,  but  of 


43  FROBEL'S  SYSTEM  IN  RELATION  TO       [SEC.  vi. 

course  the  advantage  is  the  same  to  children  of  both 
sexes.  The  girls  so  trained  will  in  like  manner  carry 
the  benefit  of  that  more  complete  development  of 
natural  faculty  into  the  work  of  after  years,  and  as 
mothers  they  will  take  a  very  different  view  of  their 
office  from  that  which  the  women  of  the  lower  classes 
generally  take.  Remembering  how  early  their  own 
education  began,  and  round  what  little  things  it  seemed 
to  turn,  they  also  will  begin  early,  and  observe  little 
things,  and  recall  the  Kiuder-garten  songs  as  they 
watch  the  infant's  cradle,  and  try  to  prepare  it  for  the 
course  of  instruction  which  was  so  happy  and  so  fruitful 
to  themselves.  The  love  of  order  and.  of  beauty,  which 
are  such  characteristic  results  of  Kinder-garten  educa- 
tion, will  nowhere  produce  more  important  fruits  than 
in  the  women,  on  whose  care,  and  neatness,  and  regu- 
larity is  due  everything  that  raises  the  labouring  man's 
home  above  the  sleeping  and  feeding-place  of  the  human 
animal. 

And  now,  if  we  suppose  that  the  boy  or  girl  on  leav- 
ing school  goes  to  learn  a  trade  or  any  industrial  art,  it 
seems  almost  superfluous  to  dwell  upon  the  advantage 
of  beginning  the  apprenticeship  with  such  command  of 
the  bodily  and  mental  instruments  of  labour  as  Kinder- 
garten instruction  confers,  with  senses  trained  to  ac- 
curacy, hands  used  to  delicate  operations,  and  the  limbs 
to  orderly  and  supple  movements.  It  is  evident  that 
one  so  prepared  would  altogether  distance  another  who 
has  this  necessary  foundation  of  all  careful  workman- 
ship to  acquire.  And  as  difficulties  are  lessened,  the 
time  required  for  learning  a  trade  is  diminished,  wages 
may  be  earned  at  an  earlier  period,  or  leisure  secured 


SEC.  VI.]  INDUSTRIAL  TRAINING,  ETC.  49 

for  further  instruction.  Suppose,  for  instance,  the  boy 
entering  a  carpenter's  shop  for  the  first  time,  and 
bringing  with  him  a  habit  of  observing,  measuring,  and 
drawing  lines  and  angles,  and  of  working  with  his 
hands  quickly  and  correctly,  is  it  not  evident  how  soon 
the  use  of  tools  will  become  easy  to  him  ?  Suppose 
him  or  his  sister  entering  a  china  factory  with  eyes 
used  to  distinguish  form  and  colour,  having  learned 
something  of  drawing,  perhaps  of  modelling,  and  being 
trained  at  any  rate  to  be  true  and  accurate  in  all  their 
work,  what  progress  will  they  make,  as  compared  with 
others,  to  whom  all  this  is  unknown  ?  Again,  suppose 
they  are  employed  in  connection  with  machinery,  what 
will  not  be  the  value  of  their  early  acquired  habits  of 
order,  regularity,  and  precision  ?  Or  let  us  follow  the 
young  girl  to  a  purely  feminine  trade — to  dressmaking, 
for  example — and  see  how  quickly  her  habits  of  delicate 
handiwork  and  correct  observation  will  come  into  play : 
how  easily  she  will  copy,  how  soon  she  will  be  fit  to  cut 
out,  thanks  to  the  childish  exercises  in  accurate  measure- 
ment, and  use  of  the  scissors  in  cutting  out  paper 
designs;  or  let  us  see  her  begin  domestic  service  in 
common  housework,  where  she  will  use  her  eyes  and 
hands  intelligently,  and  feel  at  once  how  economy,  as 
well  as  beauty,  depends  on  order  and  nicety ;  or  in  the 
kitchen,  where  again  the  disciplined  accuracy  in  work, 
the  hand  skilled  in  various  movements,  and  the  in- 
telligence trained  to  understand  the  meaning  of  each 
manual  operation  to  be  performed,  will  come  in  to 
lessen  indefinitely  the  difficulties  of  the  practical  train- 
ing, and  perhaps  in  time  to  persuade  the  public  that 
what  stands  in  the  way  of  our  having  good  servants  is 


50  FROBEL'S  SYSTEM  ix  RELATION  TO       [SEC.  YL 

not  popular  education,  but  the  want  of  education — that 
withholding  knowledge  will  not  increase  the  dexterity 
of  the  hand,  nor  give  the  qualities  needed  to  direct  it, 
and  which  belong  only  to  carefully  trained  habits  of 
observation  and  accuracy.     It  is  easy  to  imagine  that 
many  persons  will  say  the  advocates  of  this  system  ride 
a  hobby,  and  that  the  large  results  we  anticipate  will 
be  nullified,  as  the  results  of  other  plans  of  education 
have  again  and  again  disappointed  reformers.     Bat  the 
answer  to  this  is  twofold ;   first,  no   other  system  of 
nursery  training  is  based  on  a  philosophical  study  of 
human  nature  ;  secondly,  all  school  systems  neglect  two 
or  three  years  of  child-life,  which  the  Kinder-garten 
turns  to  account,  and  thus  not  only  begin  later,  but 
begin  when  habits  and  inclinations  are  already  in  some 
measure   formed,    and   probably    hostile   to  those    the 
educator  wishes  to  train.     It  is  not  so  much  that  other 
methods  fail,  as  that  we  are  inconsistent  in   our  ex- 
pectations— we  hope  to  reap  what  we  have  never  sown. 
Those  ordinary  school  methods  teach  certain  definite 
things,  and  must  be  judged  according  as  they  succeed 
in  giving  accurate  knowledge  of  them,  but  they  do  not 
attempt  to  draw  out  all  the  faculties,  or  to  take  hold  of 
the  emotional  and  imaginative  side  of  the  child's  nature ; 
in  short,  the  most  complete  instruction  is  not  education, 
and  the  failures  of  the  former  cannot  affect  our  estimate 
of  the  latter,  which  on  any  large  scale  has  never  even 
been  tried.     Now,  Frobel's  system  is  education  in  the 
truest  sense ;    to  try  it,  therefore,  is  a  new  experiment 
in  every  way.      It  gives  its  most  strenuous  efforts   to 
achieve    those   very   things   which    ordinary    methods 
neglect ;  it  cares  comparatively  little  for  teaching,  but 


SEC.  VI.]  INDUSTRIAL  TRAINING,  ETC.  51 

it  strives  to  fashion  the  human  creature  so  that  it  shall 
derive  full  benefit  from  all  later  teaching,  whether  of 
books  or  the  experience  of  life ;  and,  I  repeat,  that  its 
value  increases  in  proportion  as  that  later  teaching  will 
be  circumscribed.  To  the  great  mass  of  mankind,  whose 
lives  must  be  devoted  to  bread- winning  labour,  the 
period  of  mental  training  comes  not  again  after  child- 
hood is  closed — in  truth,  it  comes  not  again  to  any  of 
us,  though  we  may  strive  by  later  culture  to  remedy  the 
short-comings  of  early  education.  To  the  poor  man 
those  short-comings  are  final,  and  fatally  do  they  help 
to  hedge  in  his  whole  after-life  within  the  circle  of 
bodily  necessities.  Henceforth  one  influence  only — 
that  of  the  short  Church  services  of  one  day  in  seven — 
makes  any  attempt  to  lift  him  above  that  circle,  and 
this  too  often  in  so  narrow  a  way  that  they  appeal  as 
little  to  his  understanding,  as  the  school-teaching  ap- 
pealed to  his  moral  and  imaginative  faculties.  Frobel 
alone  has  worked  out  a  system  of  education  which, 
beginning  from  the  very  dawn  of  intelligence,  makes 
the  right  use  of  the  various  faculties  a  second  nature — 
works  on  the  whole  being,  till  the  heart  and  intelligence 
expand  together,  and  the  disinherited  of  the  earth 
are  called  to  share  in  the  spiritual  inheritance  of  our 
common  humanity,  in  those  joys  which  make  mental 
activity  so  far  nobler  a  thing  than  a  mere  instrument 
of  profit,  and  enable  all  to  realise  the  words  of  Christ, 
that  '  man  shall  not  live  by  bread  alone/  lifting  him 
whatever  his  earthly  station,  to  join  his  brethren  in  love 
for  all  that  is  great  and  beautiful  in  God's  world,  and 
for  Him  as  the  Author  of  all. 


52  FROBEL'S  APPEAL  TO  WOMEN  [SEC,  vn. 

SECTION  VII. 
Frobel's  Appeal  to  Women 

FROBEL  did  not  at  once  direct  his  attention  to  infant 
training.  The  Kinder-garten  was  the  crowning  work 
of  a  life  devoted  to  the  study  of  education,  and  to  prac- 
tical teaching.  I  may  say  in  one  sense  that  he  went 
back  step  by  step  till  he  stood  beside  the  infant's  cradle. 
He  was  still  a  student  at  the  University  of  Jena,  when 
the  state  of  society  around  him,  the  low  condition — 
mental  and  physical — into  which  he  felt  that  his  country 
had  fallen,  forced  upon  him  the  conviction  that  only 
by  the  education  of  another  generation  on  better  prin- 
ciples with  a  freer  and  wider  scope,  morally  and  intel- 
lectually, and  with  more  attention  to  the  laws  of 
physical  development,  could  the  nation  be  awakened 
to  a  higher  and  better  life.  This  conviction  was  shared 
more. or  less  by  all  the  best  men  of  Germany  at  that 
time  ;  and  the  half  century  that  has  elapsed  since  then 
has  shown,  by  the  immense  progress  made  in  those 
portions  of  culture  that  have  been  really  cared  for,  what 
is  the  power  of  education  when  steadily  wielded  towards 
a  given  purpose. 

.But  Frobel  did  not  desire  the  cultivation  of  any 
portion  at  the  expense  of  the  rest — the  hothouse  training 
of  intelligence  was  not  education  to  him;  and  thus 
all  the  efforts  made,  and  the  improvement  achieved, 
were  still,  in  his  view,  stamped  with  imperfection.  He 
did  not  complain  of  mere  shortcomings  in  the  results, 
such  as  we  find  in  all  human  undertakings,  but  of 
radical  imperfection  of  system  ;  and  he  had  no  peace 


SEC.  vii.]          FKOBEL'S  APPEAL  TO  WOMEN  53 

till,  little  by  little,  through  the  course  of  long  laborious 
years,  he  had  elaborated  a  new  system,  more  in  accord- 
ance with  nature,  and  with  man's  mission  upon  earth. 

Poverty  having  cut  his  own  studies  short,  he  accepted 
subordinate  work  in  a  school  as  a  means  of  living.  Thus 
apparent  accident  made  a  teacher  of  the  man  who,  by 
the  watch-fires  of  Germany's  army  of  deliverance,  as 
well  as  in  his  student's  room  at  Jena,  had  dreamed  of 
education  as  the  salvation  of  his  country.  In  his  new 
vocation  all  his  previous  opinions  were  strengthened, 
and  he  longed  for  the  opportunity  of  independent  action, 
He  took  private  pupils ;  he  went  with  them  to  work 
under  Pestalozzi,  whose  theories  he  had  closely  studied, 
and  strengthened  and  enlarged  his  own  principles  by 
the  study  of  the  merits  and  defects  of  that  great  man's 
system.  It  is  impossible  here  to  follow  his  course  in 
detail ;  as  soon  as  he  was  able  he  established'  a  school 
himself,  hoping  to  work  out  his  own  theories ;  but  the 
untrained  condition  of  the  boys  who  came  to  him,  made 
his  hopes  nugatory.  His  pupils  had  little  time  left  them 
beyond  what  was  imperatively  required  to  prepare 
them  for  the  University ;  it  was  too  late  for  that  gene- 
ral training  which,  in  his  view,  was  so  absolutely  essen- 
tial. Next,  he  hoped  that  better  methods  of  teaching 
might  attain  his  purpose,  and  he  founded  a  school  for 
teachers  ;  and,  aided  by  other  eminent  men,  who 
enthusiastically  followed  his  lead,  he  trained  teachers, 
who  afterwards  did  good  service  in  the  cause.  But  his 
own  immediate  difficulty  remained  the  same.  While 
all  who  came  to  be  taught  had  so  much  to  unlearn, 
time  could  never  suffice  for  the  necessary  routine  of 
acquisition,  and  the  real  work  of  education-. 


54  FKOBEL'a  APPEAL  TO  WOMEN  [SEC.  VII. 

At  last,  his  mind  ever  working  upon  this  question, 
he  reached  the  true  solution.  The  right  direction  of 
the  faculties  must  be  given  at  the  earliest  dawn  of  life ; 
the  development,  to  be  systematic  and  harmonious,  must 
begin  before  neglect  or  over-stimulus  had  stinted  some 
faculties,  or  given  undue  preponderance  to  others — be- 
fore chance  associations  or  habits  had  warped  the  course 
of  infant  growth.  In  a  word,  the  child  must  be  studied 
and  trained  from  the  cradle,  if  we  would  hope  that 
school  training  should  have  due  effect.  Then  would 
there  be  ample  time  for  education  in  its  fullest  sense ; 
and  the  making  of  the  scholar  would  no  longer  interfere 
with  the  development  of  the  human  being.  When  once 
Frobel  had  grasped  this  idea,  the  next  step  was  clear. 
He  turned  from  schoolmasters  and  professors  to  women. 
He  called  upon  mothers  to  be  no  longer  satisfied  with 
the  lower  cares  of  motherhood,  but  to  recognise  the 
higher  office  laid  upon  them  by  Heaven — to  remember 
that  they  were  the  spiritual  mothers  of  the  race,  the 
educators  for  good,  or  for  evil,  of  each  new  generation. 

The  effect  was  thrilling.  Young  mothers  came  for 
counsel  and  direction,  childless  widows  and  unmarried 
women  devoted  themselves  unselfishly  to  the  cause 
which  he  preached,  as  that  of  the  nation,  that  of  hu- 
manity. He  worked  out  gradually  his  system  of  infant 
training,  and  established  the  first  Kinder-garten  in  a 
retired  village,  and  taught  in  it  himself,  becoming  the 
very  idol  of  the  children.  Many  women  came  to  work 
there  under  his  direction ;  they  were  of  all  ranks  and  ages, 
the  young  girl,  and  the  woman  rich  in  the  experience 
of  life,  or  worn  by  its  toils  and  cares.  All  alike  bowed 
before  his  lofty  teaching,  and  felt  the  spell  of  his  earnest 


SEC.  vii.]  FROBEL'S  APPEAL  TO  WOMEN  55 

simplicity.  From  this  centre,  knowledge  of  the  new 
system  spread  with  varied  success.  I  cannot  here  follow 
its  chequered  history,  nor  trace  the  causes  that  have 
hindered  till  now  its  full  development.  One  name  only 
now  must  be  mentioned,that  of  Baroness  von  Marenholtz 
Billow,  whose  work  has  been  so  often  referred  to  in  these 
pages.  She  was  among  Frobel's  earliest  disciples,  and 
since  his  death  has  for  years  devoted  her  great  talents 
to  the  advocacy  of  his  views,  preaching  them  from  land 
to  land,  till  she  awakened  the  interest  of  lovers  of 
education  in  France,  England,  Italy,  and  America,  as 
well  as  in  Germany. 

England,  as  might  have  been  expected  from  the  na- 
tional distrust  of  foreign  ways  and  of  new  theories,  has 
been  the  most  backward  in  adopting  the  system ;  though 
even  among  us  some  admirable  Kinder-gartens  have  for 
years  been  established.  The  time  is  now  come,  however, 
when  a  new  impulse  may,  I  hope,  be  given  to  the 
movement  ;*  and  simultaneously  with  this  must  be  echoed 
Frobel's  appeal  to  women,  on  the  response  to  which  its 
real  success  must  depend  ;  for  it  is  not  enough  to  esta- 
blish the  system  in  schools  :  it  must  be  received  in  our 
homes  and  nurseries,  if  it  is  to  produce  a  wide  harvest 
of  good.  Now,  then,  when  women  are  asking  for  edu- 
cation and  eager  for  work,  the  moment  seems  favourable 
for  placing  before  them  an  object  which  will  require  the 
best  culture  they  can  obtain,  and  give  the  noblest  direc- 
tion to  their  powers. 

*  The  above  was  written  soon  after  the  foundation  of  the  Frobel 
Society.  Now,  after  five  years'  work,  we  again  hope  that  a  new  impulse 
will  be  given  by  the  London  Training  College  for  Kinder-garten  teachers 
founded  by  the  Society. 


56  FROBEL'S  APPEAL  TO  WOMEN          [SEC.  vn. 

Of  course  it  will  be  said  in  answer  that  all  women  do 
not  care  for  children,  that  all  will  not  become  mothers, 
that  wider  paths  are  now  open,  requiring  different  stu- 
dies ;  and  all  this  may  be  granted,  and  the  advantage 
of  a  variety  of  interests  and  pursuits  fully  recognised, 
and  yet  the  fact  remains  that  for  the  majority  of  women 
— if,  indeed,  I  may  not  say  for  all — the  care  of  children 
enters  more  or  less  into  their  lives.  W  Even  those  who 
never  become  mothers  are  continually,  for  one  reason 
or  another,  forced  to  assume  the  care  of  a  family,  though 
they  may  not  win  either  the  joy  or  the  reward.  This 
general  fact  depends  not  on  social  arrangement  or  con- 
ventional laws,  but  on  the  constitution  of  nature ;  and 
thus  we  may  be  certain  that  whatever  outward  paths 
may  finally  be  cleared  for  women,  who  from  choice  or 
necessity  turn  from  home  to  the  world,  those  who  follow 
them  exclusively  will,  as  compared  with  the  whole,  still 
be  the  exceptions  only;  while  home  duties  and  responsi- 
bilities will  absorb  the  energies  of  the  sex  in  general,  as 
they  have  done  hitherto.  The  real  question  at  issue  is, 
whether,  as  hitherto,  they  shall  continue  to  be  assumed 
in  ignorance  of  their  true  scope  and  importance. 

When  we  come  to  inquire  what  studies  may  be  called 
essential  to  women,  we  find  that  foremost  among  them 
stands  that  of  education,  considered  practically  and 
philosophically ;  and  since  no  method  of  early  educa- 
tion is  comparable  with  that  of  Frobel  for  the  breadth 
of  its  principles  and  the  comprehensiveness  of  its  aims, 
we  should  desire  to  see  every  young  woman,  without 
exception  of  rank  or  immediate  destination,  go  through 
a  course  of  Kinder-gar  ten  training,  including,  in  the 
educated  classes,  the  study  of  the  principles  and  the 


SEC.  VII.]  FPtOBEL'S  APPEAL  TO  WOMEN  57 

philosophy  of  the  method.  Even  young  girls  who  are 
destined  for  some  professional  or  industrial  calling  will 
be  aided  rather  than  hindered  by  the  additional 
previous  culture  thus  obtained.  A  woman  seriously 
trained  for  her  vocation  of  education  will  enter  upon 
any  other  calling  with  a  clear  and  cultivated  under- 
standing, with  carefully  trained  habits  of  observation 
and  reasoning,  with  sound  knowledge  of  the  first 
principles  of  physical  science,  with  attention  turned  to 
the  study  of  character  which  gives  facility  for  living 
and  working  among  others,  and,  above  all,  with  the 
sense  that  life  must  be  regulated  by  duty ;  and,  thus 
provided,  we  need  not  fear  that  she  should  find  herself 
at  a  disadvantage  among  her  competitors. 

No  one  has  advocated  more  earnestly  than  myself 
the  absolute  mental  freedom  of  women,  their  inde- 
feasible right,  as  human  beings,  to  devote  their  faculties 
to  any  subject  which  most  attracts  them,  to  spend  their 
energy  in  any  direction  that  promises  most  enjoyment 
or  advantage,  within  the  bounds  that  every  moral  being 
must  respect ;  but  Nature  lays  some  special  duties  upon 
each  sex,  and  duties  take  precedence  of  privileges. 
Many  a  service  of  peril  lays  a  heavy  claim  upon  men, 
from  which  women  are  exempt ;  and  in  the  same  way 
the  care  of  the  young  lays  a  paramount  claim  upon  the 
latter,  which  Nature  binds  every  woman  to  acknowledge 
and  prepare  herself  to  discharge  fully  and  faithfully. 
The  man  who  in  the  hour  of  danger  should  declare 
himself  unfit  to  aid  in  the  defence  of  his  country  would 
not  be  more  deaf  to  patriotism  and  religion,  than  the 
woman  to  whom  the  intelligent  care  of  children 
remained  strange  or  unknown. 


FROBEL'S  APPEAL  TO  WOMEN          [SEC.  vn. 

Tliis  universal  training  of  women  in  the  principles 
of  true  infant  education  is  most  earnestly  advocated  by 
Madame  von  Marenholtz  Billow.  She  gives  the  various 
periods  she  considers  necessary  for  the  various  degrees 
of  instruction  different  classes  might  be  able  to  acquire, 
or  which  would  be  needed  for  different  positions  of 
responsibility.  She  considers  that  for  those  who  intend 
to  take  up  the  employment  professionally,  a  year  is  the 
shortest  time  that  should  be  given  to  the  study  of  the 
system,  practically  and  theoretically,  while  an  addi- 
tional year  of  probation  as  an  assistant  is  further 
requisite  to  fit  any  one  to  become  directress  of  a 
Kinder-garten.  The  shorter  period  of  study  that  has 
often  been  thought  sufficient,  and  the  consequent 
superficial  knowledge  of  principles  in  many  teachers, 
has  been,  in  her  opinion,  the  cause  of  the  slow  progress 
the  method  has  made.  Educated  women  wishing  to 
prepare  themselves  generally  for  possible  future  duties 
require  the  same  extent  of  theoretical  study,  but  not  the 
same  time  to  be  spent  in  practical  exercise.  Next,  for 
women  who  intend  to  become  nursery  governesses 
(bonnes  d'enfants),  working  under  a  mother's  direction, 
a  shorter  period  of  preparation  may  suffice ;  the  philo- 
sophical study  may  be  abridged,  while  they  are  well 
grounded  in  first  principles,  and  in  the  practical  part  of 
the  system.  And,  lastly,  nursery-maids  would  only  be 
required  to  be  acquainted  with  the  latter,  possessing 
only  those  first  elements  of  knowledge  without  which 
even  the  earliest  games  could  not  be  taught  to  little 
children,  bringing  with  them  that  tender  reverence  for 
childhood  which  is  inspired  by  Frobel's  method,  and 
which  will  at  least  make  them  feel  the  danger  of 


SEC.  VIL]          FKOBEL'S  APPEAL  TO  WOMEN  59 

ignorance  in  their  treatment  either  of  mind  or  body. 
When  we  consider  the  coarse  material  out  of  which  we 
make  nursery-maids  now,  it  needs  no  words  to  show 
what  advantages  would  accrue  from  this  degree  of 
instruction  given  to  all  the  women  of  the  working 
classes.  We  need  not  be  told  that  such  a  thing  is 
impossible  at  present ;  in  unfolding  the  plan  for  a  great 
reform,  we  necessarily  project  ourselves  into  the  future. 
But  that  future,  and  not,  I  trust,  a  distant  one,  will  see 
these  schools  greatly  multiplied,  and  gradually  brought 
within  the  reach  of  all.  Even  now,  women  who  have 
leisure  to  study,  may  acquaint  themselves  with  the 
theory  and  philosophy  of  the  subject,  and  may  with 
little  trouble  watch  its  application  in  some  of  the 
existing  Kinder-gartens.  Later,  girls  whether  educated 
at  home  or  at  school  will  be  able  to  go  through  their 
regular  course  of  instruction  without  difficulty.  If  in 
town,  a  Kinder-garten  will  be  found  attached  to  every 
large  school  which  now  receives  a  class  of  young 
children;  if  in  the  country,  there  would  be  the 
Kinder-garten  attached  to  the  elementary  schools; 
which,  whether  in  town  or  country,  would  likewise 
afford  the  means  of  instruction  for  girls  of  the  working 
classes. 

It  will  only  require  a  little  perseverance,  perhaps 
some  reward  or  distinction,  to  induce  mothers  of  those 
classes  -to  send  their  daughters  for  a  few  hours  a-week 
to  the  Kinder-garten  ;  they  would  soon  be  encouraged 
to  do  so  by  the  benefits  that  would  accrue  to  them- 
selves, either  in  the  superior  help  girls  so  trained 
would  give  in  the  care  of  younger  children,  or  of  the 
household  generally,  or  in  the  better  wages  they  would 


60  FROBEL'S  APPEAL  TO  WOMEN          [SEC.  vn. 

receive  if  they  go  to  service ;  for  we  may  suppose  that 
it  would  soon  become  a  settled  custom  to  take  as 
nursery-maids  only  girls  so  instructed.  Lastly,  when 
— as  I  trust  will  happen — Frobel's  method  is  adopted 
universally  as  the  foundation  of  education  for  all  classes, 
then  women,  having  been  trained  themselves  as  children 
in  the  Kinder-garten,  will  learn  with  far  greater  facility, 
both  the  practice  and  the  theory ;  the  former  will  be 
outwardly  familiar,  the  latter  will  be  more  easily 
apprehended  by  minds  whose  own  culture  has  been 
systematically  grounded.  Thus,  as  time  goes  on,  a 
reform,  the  ultimate  consequence  of  which  we  are 
unable  to  calculate,  will  be  more  and  more  facilitated 
and  accelerated. 

That  the  wide  adoption  of  these  schools  will  make  a 
very  large  demand  for  women's  labour  is  evident,  and 
that  the  serious  study  they  will  require  will  raise  the 
popular  estimation  of  women's  ratural  vocation,  is 
certain.  Few  things  have  so  much  contributed  to 
foster  the  generally  contemptuous  opinion  of  woman's 
capacity,  as  the  frivolous  and  ignorant  view  taken  of 
her  share  in  the  work  of  the  race.  To  men  seems  to 
fall  naturally  all  important  labour  in  the  State,  to 
women  only  household  care  and  the  rearing  of  children. 
But  when  the  care  of  children  shall  be  recognised  in  its 
true  light,  it  will  be  seen  that  no  labour  for  the  State 
exceeds,  if  any  equals  in  importance,  that  which  women 
have  thus  laid  upon  them. 

It  is  not,  then,  as  to  an  inferior  part  in  the  social 
division  of  labours,  nor  necessarily  to  an  exclusive  task, 
that  we  call  women,  in  urging  upon  them  all  to  make 
education  their  first  study.  Far  from  it,  we  call  them 


SEC.  vii.]          FROBEL'S  APPEAL  TO  WOMEN  61 

to  a  task  that  underlies  all  others,  but  excludes  none, 
while  it  opens  to  women  a  region  of  influence  and 
powers  so  great  and  far-reaching  that  it  has  been 
made  the  battle-field  of  statesmen  and  Jesuits  for 
generations.  In  the  history  of  that  long  struggle 
'between  Church  and  State  for  the  control  of  Educa- 
tion, women  may  learn  to  measure  the  power  that  is 
theirs,  independent  alike  of  Church  or  State  decrees, 
and  which  their  own  feebleness  or  ignorance  can  alone 
curtail  or  pervert. 

And  the  more  they  realise  this  fact,  the  greater  will 
be  their  gratitude  to  Frobel,  who  was  the  first  to  pro- 
claim, upon  national  grounds,  this  supreme  importance 
of  women's  mission,  and  to  call  upon  them,  in  the  name 
of  God  and  humanity,  to  undertake  that  deepest  and 
most  searching  of  social  reforms  which  begins  at  the 
infant's  cradle,  and  on  which  must  ultimately  rest  all 
our  hopes  of  a  better  future  for  the  race. 


HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN.* 

[THE  term  "higher  education"  is  much  in  use  at  pre- 
sent, and  seems  in  different  quarters  to  indicate  such 
different  meanings,  that  I  will  at  once  state  that  in 
using  it  myself  I  mean  simply  the  education  that  fol- 
lows that  of  school.  Higher  instruction  would  be,  of 
course,  the  right  expression,  if  it  were  possible  in  Eng- 
lish to  preserve  the  proper  distinction  between  those 
terms,  the  confused  use  of  which  is  at  the  root  of  so 
much  confusion  in  our  views  of  the  whole  subject. 
Higher  instruction  is  the  course  of  study  pursued  after 
the  preparatory  studies  of  school  time  are  completed; 
higher  education  would  in  its  full  meaning  comprise 
these,  as  part  of  the  means  of  that  self-culture  which 
begins  when  childish  trammels  are  cast  off,  to  end  only 
when  the  uses  of  this  world  have  trained  the  immortal 
spirit  for  higher  work  in  some  yet  unknown  region. 

The  only  use  of  dwelling  on  the  distinction  here,  is 
lest  it  should  be  imagined  by  some  that  the  term 
finished,  which  has  been  ridiculed,  as  applied  to  school 
studies,  could  perhaps  belong  to  higher  education. 

There  is  a  great  danger  in  seeking  to  reform  so  defec- 
tive a  method  of  instruction  as  that  which  has  prevailed 
for  girls,  lest  the  attempt  should  be  made  to  enlarge 
the  curriculum  too  much,  an  attempt  which  would 
inevitably  lead  us  back  to  superficiality  and  want  of 
thoroughness.  The  one  aim  of  school  teaching  should 

*  "What  is  between  brackets  is  added  to  the  original  papers. 
E 


66  HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN 

be  to  discipline  the  faculties  for  future  use,  and  to  do 
so  by  means  of  such  a  thorough  groundwork  of  instruc- 
tion in  subjects  considered  important,  that  the  portals 
of  real  knowledge  may  be  open  for  wider  search  in  any 
direction  in  which  the  scholars  may  be  impelled  here- 
after to  turn.  For  instance,  mathematics,  history, 
science,  which  figure  grandly  on  the  prospectus  of 
schools,  are  mere  delusive  names  if  any  serious  study 
of  these  subjects  is  supposed  to  be  made;  but  they 
stand  for  something  very  real  if  the  school  course  gives 
concerning  them  such  a  perfect  hold  upon  principles, 
such  familiar  acquaintance  with  outline,  that  the  pupil 
knows  accurately  ivhere  he  stands,  how  to  advance 
farther,  how  large  is  the  field  beyond  him,  and  what  is 
the  direction  he  must  take  if  he  would  explore  any  por- 
tion of  it. 

The  wide  extension  of  classes  for  ladies  within  the 
last  few  years,  gives  satisfactory  evidence  that  we  are 
gradually  growing  out  of  that  disastrous  notion  that  the 
close  of  school  life  is  the  close  of  study ;  that  there  is  no 
purpose  for  women  in  knowledge,  and,  therefore,  that 
school-girl  acquisitions  suffice  to  furnish  them  forth  for 
life.  The  University  local  examinations  have  done  great 
service  to  women  in  enforcing  the  recognition  of  the 
difference  between  school  lessons,  and  higher  culture. 
The  threefold  series  of  Cambridge  examinations  point 
to  three  stages  :  the  elementary  and  the  more  advanced 
school  studies  up  to  eighteen  years  of  age,  and  the 
higher  examination  open  to  men  and  women  after 
eighteen,  to  which  corresponds  the  London  University 
examination  for  women,  lately  placed  on  exactly  the 
same  footing  as  the  matriculation  examination  for  men, 


HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN  67 

Thus  the  principle  has  been  proclaimed  by  the  highest 
educational  authorities  in  the  country  that  education 
does  not  close  at  eighteen  for  women  any  more  than 
for  men.  We  are  a  long  way  yet  from  the  universal 
acceptance  of  this  fact,  or  of  any  practical  course 
founded  upon  it ;  but  the  necessities  of  life  forcing 
many  women  to  more  serious  study  than  heretofore, 
their  example  is  not  without  its  influence  ;  and  every- 
day difficulties  are  lessened,  and  prejudices  softened, 
which  formerly  raised  formidable  barriers  against  the 
efforts  of  educators.  Hence  the  rapid  spread  of  the 
classes  above  mentioned ;  concerning  which  the  only 
criticism  I  should  be  disposed  to  make  is,  that  they 
have,  generally  speaking,  been  somewhat  desultory, 
that  they  have  not  drawn  the  line  I  should  wish  to 
draw  between  the  essential,  and  what  may  be  left  to 
individual  taste.  A  guiding  thread,  a  link  of  purpose 
in  our  studies,  which  groups  them  round  one  centre, 
gives  them  stability  and  coherence,  and  the  tone  of 
the  culture  is  higher  than  when  it  is  composed  of  here 
a  little  and  there  a  little,  gathered  as  fancy  impels  in 
different  directions.  In  building  up  our  intellectual 
structure,  we  have  three  distinct  stages  to  go  through  : 
first,  the  foundation  to  be  laid,  and  the  capacity  for 
work  to  be  acquired,  and  this  belongs  to  school  dis- 
cipline; secondly,  to  acquire  what  is  essential  for  our 
distinct  duties  in  life ;  thirdly,  to  exercise  free  choice 
in  gratifying  to  the  utmost  whatever  love  of  know- 
ledge we  are  fortunate  enough  to  possess.  When  we 
depart  widely  from  this  order,  we  introduce  confusion 
and  lose  all  method  in  our  culture.  In  former  views  of 
girls'  education,  no  such  order  was  ever  dreamed  of,  and 


68  HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN 

now,  in  our  haste  to  shake  off  the  old  ignorance,  we  are 
too  apt  to  overlook  method  and  purpose  for  the  sake  of 
varied  acquirements. 

My  object  then  in  the  following  pages  is  to  dwell  upon 
this  distinction  between  the  essentials,  corresponding 
to  professional  education  ;  and  the  non-essential  that  can 
be  left  to  individual  choice  and  capacity,  and  whose 
range  may  indeed  be  co-extensive  with  the  whole  field 
of  human  knowledge.  Let  us  then  try  to  ascertain  what 
is  really  indispensable  for  the  education  of  women. 

Considered  in  this  light,  three  subjects  stand  out 
prominently — human  physiology,  mental  and  moral 
philosophy,  and  political,  or,  as  I  may  prefer  to  call  it, 
social  economy.  These  are  the  three  subjects  without 
some  knowledge  of  which  no  woman  is  fully  furnished 
for  the  duties  of  life,  and  they  are  subjects  which  in  my 
opinion  are  distinctly  beyond  the  school  curriculum, 
except  in  the  barest  elements.  If  it  were  my  province 
to  speak  of  the  education  of  men,  I  might  prove  that 
the  same  knowledge  given  to  them  would  tend  to  rectify 
some  terrible  evils,  under  which  the  world  has  suffered 
from  generation  to  generation ;  but  what  makes  it 
indispensable  to  women  is,  that  the  welfare  of  childhood 
and  the  comfort  of  households  must  rest  in  their  hands, 
and  will  be  cared  for  only  in  some  haphazard  fashion 
without  that  knowledge  of  the  conditions  of  physical 
health,  of  mental  health,  and  of  the  health  of  society, 
which  is  acquired  by  means  of  the  three  studies  above 
named.  It  is  evident  that  taking  this  kind  of  practical 
view  of  any  subject,  it  is  elementary  knowledge  only 
that  is  implied.  I  am  asking  no  such  obvious  impossi- 
bility as  that  all  well-educated  women  should  be  thorough 


HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN  C9 

political  economists,  or  philosophers,  or  physiologists;  but 
only  that  they  should  know  enough  to  act  safely  within 
the  limits  of  educational  work  and  of  ordinary  social 
relations,  in  which  the  principles  of  those  sciences  are 
the  only  safe  guides, — enough,  especially,  to    distrust 
ignorance,  and  to  know  when  their  own  knowledge  fails. 
If  it  be  objected  that  all  women  will  not  be  mothers 
and  mistresses  of  households,  I  reply — as  I  have  often 
replied  before — that  exceptions  cannot  be  taken  into 
account  in  discussing  general  principles.     Few  women 
— probably  none— begin  life  deliberately  intending  not 
to  marry :  I  should  be  truly  sorry  for  those  who  did  so. 
The  determination  would  indicate  a  nature  so  poor  in 
its  sympathies  of  heart  and  mind  as  not  to  feel  the- joys 
and  responsibilities  of  that  fuller  existence  that  is  bound 
up  in  the  strongest  of  human  ties  ;  or  it  would  point  to 
a  youth  so  saddened  by  home  misery  as  to  have  formed 
the  stern   resolve  never  to  accept  a  yoke  which  can 
become  so  crushing  to  all  that  makes  life  dignified  or 
happy.      But,  thank  God,  both  these  cases  are  rare ; 
utterly  cold  natures  are  singular  exceptions,  and  early 
experience  of  misery  at  home  more  often  unfortunately 
drives  girls  to  accept  the  first  offer  of  marriage  that 
takes  them  from  the  evils  they  do  know,  to  brave  in 
ignorant  self-confidence  the  untried  evils  of  the  future. 
Few,  then,  are  the  women  who  determinately  shut  them- 
selves out  from  the  ordinary  duties  of  their  sex,  and  of 
the  large  number  who  for  various  reasons  of  a  different 
kind  remain  single,  how  many  do  we  find  who,  at  one 
time  or  other  of  their  lives,  are  called  upon  to  undertake 
family  cares  and  responsibilities,  though  excluded  from 
the  rights  and  the  joys  that  should  accompany  them,  to 


70  HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN 

supplement  the  failing  strength  of  others,  to  raise  in  one 
way  or  another  the  burden  that  has  fallen  from  feebler 
or  more  careless  hands.  Certainly  the  cases  are  nu- 
merous enough  to  warrant  the  assertion  that  with  few 
exceptions  all  women  are  more  or  less  concerned  in  the 
management  of  children  and  of  household  affairs,  and 
therefore  that  all  subjects  necessary  to  be  learned  to 
make  that  management  wise  and  thorough  are  indis- 
pensable subjects  for  the  higher  education  of  girls. 

First,  then,  as  regards  Physiology.  It  strikes  a  mind 
that  has  any  notion  of  the  difference  between  certainty 
and  uncertainty,  between  knowledge  and  ignorance,  as 
something  not  only  strange,  but  awful,  that  the  health 
of  children  should  be  trusted  to  women  who  are 
absolutely  ignorant  of  the  mechanism  of  those  delicate 
frames,  of  the  nature  of  the  organs  whose  right  action 
is  life,  whose  impeded,  faltering  action  is  worse  than 
death,  since  it  may  continue  through  years  of  that  dire 
form  of  human  misery  called  delicate  health,  destroying 
enjoyment,  lessening  usefulness,  adding  weight  to  every 
burden,  a  darker  shadow  to  every  care.  Yet  so  fearful 
a  calamity  may  result,  and  does  result  in  numberless 
instances,  from  the  ignorance  of  mothers.  This  subject 
was  admirably  treated  in  a  little  book  written  nearly 
forty  years  ago,  by  Dr  Andrew  Combe  ;*  but  in  this 
age  of  much  writing  and  rapid  reading  wise  words  are 
soon  forgotten ;  a  generation  has  passed  away  since 
Dr  Combe  wrote,  and  till  very  lately  we  have  still  been 
asking  whetheryoung  women  should  be  taught  physiology. 
In  every  illness  the  best  physician  will  be  the  readiest 

*  Physiology  applied  to  Health  and  Education. 


HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN  71 

to  acknowledge  the  assistance  given  by  skilful  nursing, 
and  accordingly  nursing  is  an  important  part  of  the 
practical  application  of  the  knowledge  we  contend  for, 
and  should  be  systematically  taught  to  every  woman ; 
but  if  nursing  is  valuable  in  illness,  the  same  intelligent 
care  is  no  less  needful  to  prevent  illness.  Nursing  deals 
with  one  definite  state  of  things,  and  careful  attention 
to  a  limited  range  of  facts  is  sufficient  to  enable  us  to 
assist  the  physician's  treatment,  or  to  clear  away  impedi- 
ments to  the  restorative  action  of  the  great  physician 
Nature  ;  but  in  ordinary  life  the  conditions  are  far  more 
complicated.  "We  believe  things  are  going  right  because 
the  elements  of  evil  are  hidden.  The  nature  and  func- 
tions of  the  great  organs  being  unknown,  the  conditions 
under  which  the  functions  are  healthily  carried  out  are 
unknown  also.  If  we  do  not  know  the  proper  normal 
state,  neither  can  we  detect  the  abnormal.  Much  is  said 
and  written  in  these  days  about  hygiene,  but  unless  it 
is  treated  as  a  part  of  applied  physiology,  it  is  a  mere 
set  of  rules ;  science  debased  to  routine  from  want  of 
knowing  the  principle  on  which  it  rests.  Just  as  school- 
masters undertake  to  educate  N^ithout  any  study  of  the 
nature  and  action  of  the  human  mind,  so  mothers 
undertake  the  care  of  health  without  knowing  the 
A  B  C  of  the  conditions  on  which  health  depends ;  for 
such  knowledge  can  be  acquired  by  a  study  of  physiology 
alone.  A  few  empirical  laws  about  pure  air  and  whole- 
some food  may  be  learned  easily,  but  what  it  is  in  the 
structure  of  the  lungs  and  the  heart  that  make  certain 
qualities  of  the  air  hurtful  or  the  reverse, — what  the 
digestive  organs  require  from  the  daily  food  in  order  to 
nourish  and  repair,  and  to  send  a  pure  and  vigorous 


72  HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN 

current  of  blood  through  the  frame, — what  care  is 
needed  to  keep  the  action  of  the  brain  clear  and  healthy, 
to  maintain  that  balance  of  physical  and  mental  activity 
on  which  harmonious  development  depends,  these  things 
can  be  known  only  by  special  study.  And  it  is  this 
sturdy  which  I  have  here  placed  first  in  my  list  of  sub- 
jects indispensable  for  the  higher  education  of  women; 
not  because  it  can  claim  priority  over  subjects  that 
relate  to  mental  and  moral  health,  but  because  it  comes 
first  in  point  of  time  among  the  mother's  cares  and 
responsibilities,  and  that  it  bears  directly  on  the  work 
of  life  for  all,  whether  mothers  or  not. 

For  obvious  reasons,  greater  difficulties  attend  the 
study  of  physiology  for  young  women  than  perhaps 
that  of  any  other  subject,  and  till  comparatively  lately 
the  desired  knowledge  could  in  most  cases  be  obtained 
from  books  alone,  and  received  therefore  no  aid  from 
demonstration.  Now  these  obstacles  are  in  great  mea- 
sure overcome,  the  value  of  the  study  is  daily  rising  in 
public  estimation  ;  and  in  London  at  any  rate  lectures 
on  Physiology*  can  be  attended  without  difficulty,  while 
elementary  works  of  a  high  character  are  within  the 
student's  reach. 

And  now  supposing  a  young  woman  to  have  gone 
through  such  a  course  of  study,  it  remains  for  her  to 
learn  something  of  the  practical  applications  of  the 
physiological  knowledge  she  has  acquired.  She  is  no 
longer  in  ignorance  of  the  great  principles  on  which 
organic  life  depends,  nor  of  the  structure  of  that  frame 
"so  fearfully  and  wonderfully  made,"  the  consideration 

*  See  Calendar  of  Classes  open  to  Women  in  London,  published 
monthly  in  the  Women's  Education  Journal. 


HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN  73 

of  which  deepen ed  in  the  mind  of  the  Psalmist  his  sense 
of  awe  and  reverence  for  God.     Blunders  such  as  the 
ignorant  fall  into  every  day,  and  by  which  they  under- 
mine their  own  health  and  imperil  that  of  the  hapless 
children  depending  on  their  care,  would  be,  it  is  hoped, 
impossible  for  them  ;   but  there  is  a  wide  difference 
between  such  general  application  of  principles  and  the 
skilful  ordering  of  minute  daily  trifles  .in  obedience  to 
them,  which  is  essential  to  prevent  illness,  or  to  assist 
in  restoring  health.     Scientific  study  does  not  aim  at 
giving  a  knowledge  of  practical  details,  and  a  great  deal 
of  mere  necessary  common-place  information  must  come 
in  to  guide  us  here,  which  would  be  totally  out  of  place 
in  a  lecture-room.      The  essential  principles  of  good 
sanitary  conditions  are  easily  deduced  from  physiology; 
but  to  bring  our  knowledge  to  bear  in  our  own  house- 
holds,  much    special    acquaintance   with    methods   of 
ventilating  and  cleansing  within  and  without  our  walls 
is  indispensable,  and  requires  to  be  practically  studied ; 
and  no  person  is  fit  to  have  the  management  of  a  house- 
hold, and,  therefore  to  be  responsible  for  its  general 
health,  as  far  as  local  influences  are  concerned,  who  has 
not  so  studied  this  important  question.     This,  like  some 
other  portions  of  the  argument  of  these  papers,  may 
seem  in  contradiction  with  the  ordinary  practice  of  life — 
with  the  marriages  out  of  the  school-room  that  we  daily 
see,  the  child  of  yesterday  placed  in  a  position  of  trust 
and  responsibility  to-morrow ;  but  the  contradiction,  I 
venture  to  assert,  tells  against  the  marriages,  not  against 
the  studies  I  urge  as  the  technical  training  for  any  such 
position. 

I  believe  that  the  most  thorough  mode  of  studying 


74  HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN 

practically  the  difficult  subject  we  are  considering  is 
by  attendance  in  a  hospital.  A  mother  who  has  been 
thoroughly  trained  herself,  and  must  have  gained 
largely  through  her  varied  experience  of  her  own  family 
cares,  could  of  course  give  much  valuable  instruction  to 
her  daughter ;  and,  if -this  were  seriously  done,  it  might 
be  in  some  measure  a  substitute  for  the  more  systematic 
instruction  of  hespital  practice.  Still,  where  the  latter 
is  attainable,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  knowledge  may 
be  acquired  there  in  a  few  months  or  weeks,  which  it 
might  be  years  before  home  experience  afforded  the 
opportunity  of  learning.  It  is  quite  clear  that  whatever 
else  women  do  from  choice  or  necessity  in  this  busy 
world,  the  internal  economy  of  our  homes  and  the  care 
of  the  sick  must  fall  to  them.  Nursing  has  in  all  times 
been  a  feminine  calling,  and  for  that  reason  probably 
supposed  to  require  no  knowledge.  The  religious  devo- 
tion of  Catholic  sisterhoods  first  showed  a  better  example, 
and,  for  some  years  past,  great  efforts  have  been  made 
to  raise  that  invaluable  art  out  of  the  contemptible 
condition  into  which  it  had  fallen.  What  we  owe  in 
this  respect  to  Miss  Nightingale  it  needs  no  words  of 
mine  to  point  out,  and  I  cannot  do  better  than  direct 
attention  to  her  "  Notes  on  Nursing "  to  show  what  I 
mean  by  the  practical  study  I  wish  to  recommend.  For 
nursing,  all  the  ordinary  precautions  about  ventilation 
and  cleanliness  are  carried  to  their  furthest  extreme, 
and  it  is  thus  that  their  habitual  ordinary  value  is  best 
illustrated :  and  for  this  reason,  a  hospital  where  these 
things  are  systematically  and  permanently  attended  to 
upon  scientific  principles,  is  the  best  school  for  learning 
them. 


HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN  75 

In  the  same  manner,  although  painful  experience 
trains  any  thoughtful  person  into  a  good  nurse  at  home, 
the  first  patients  suffer  while  the  experience  is  slowly 
gathered,  and,  after  all,  the  field  is  a  narrow  one ;  the 
appearance  of  some  new  form  of  illness,  or  some  accident 
calling  for  precautions  different  from  any  we  have  been 
obliged  to  use  before,  makes  us  feel  very  helpless  at  a 
moment  when  helplessness  is  a  heavy  addition  to  our 
cares.  The  wide  practice  of  a  hospital  teaches  more  of 
these  things  in  a  few  weeks  than  home  experience  in  as 
many  years,  and  it  gives  the  knowledge  before  it  is 
needed  for  use,  before  we  have  felt  our  heart  ready  to 
break,  as  we  stood  ignorant  and  incapable  in  sight  of  the 
suffering  of  one  we  love.  All  the  skilful  modes  of  moving 
a  sick  person,  of  bed-making,  and  other  forms  of  personal 
attendance  under  the  difficulties  of  serious  illness — the 
best  position  for  a  patient  under  given  circumstances 
(a  matter  which  after  an  accident  is  often  of  supreme 
importance) — the  minute  care  about  medicines — the 
mode  of  preparing  and  applying  external  remedies — the 
preparation  of  sick-room  food ;  all  these  are  learnt  in 
the  best  way  in  a  hospital,  because  they  are  seen  in 
regular  operation,  and  above  all,  perhaps,  because  the 
mind  is  free  to  learn  while  the  heart  is  not  wrung  with 
home  affliction. 

The  mere  orderly  ways  of  professional  nursing  carried 
into  home  practice  would  make  a  difference  of  the  most 
important  kind.  To  know  what  to  leave  undone  is 
often  as  important  as  to  know  what  to  do,  and  how 
much  fuss,  and  hurry,  and  vain  expenditure  of  labour 
and  exertion  are  saved  thereby  !  The  thorough  study 
of  nursing  so  as  to  be  fit  for  a  responsible  office  is  a  long 


76  HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN 

and  serious  one,  and  obviously  not  to  be  undertaken  by 
all :  but  such  a  study  as  would  enable  young  women  to 
enforce  the  practical  application  of  the  principles  they 
have  learnt,  that  would  enable  them  to  watch  all  light 
home  cases  with  intelligence,  and  to  know  (no  slight 
thing)  when  higher  skill  is  required ;  which  would  give 
them  practical  knowledge  of  the  best  conditions  for 
baffling  disease,  all  this  might  be  learnt  by  a  person  duly 
prepared  in  the  course  of  two  or  three  months'  atten- 
dance at  a  hospital,  and  we  may  be  certain  that  time  so 
spent  will  never  be  regretted. 

Whatever  the  task  future  life  may  bring,  whether  the 
care  of  infancy  or  of  old  age,  or  nursing  through  some 
fearful  period  when  an  epidemic  has  invaded  an  other- 
wise healthy  household,  the  woman  so  instructed  will  look 
back  with  thankfulness  to  the  training  which  has  doubled 
her  usefulness  in  time  of  need.  No  one  denies  the  duty  or 
doubts  its  importance ;  only  according  to  the  character- 
istic method  of  viewing  matters  connected  with  women, 
they  are  expected  to  knmv  when  their  knowledge  is 
wanted,  but  not  to  be  taught. 


II.  MENTAL  PHILOSOPHY 

The  second  subject  on  our  list  of  essentials  for  the 
Higher  Education  of  Women  is  Mental  Philosophy, 
The  words  may  sound  alarming  to  many,  and  when 
we  remember  that  they  might  cover  the  whole  ground 
of  Ethics  and  Metaphysics,  we  may  partly  excuse  the 
alarm ;  but  though  I  use  the  term  because  it  rightly 
designates  the  study  I  recommended,  it  is  only  a  por- 


HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN 

tion  of  it  that  can  be  called  essential,  or  that  minds 
not  naturally  metaphysical  can  be  expected  to  enter 
into.  Shakespeare  distinguishes  man  as  "  looking  before 
and  after/'  and  doubtless  these  faculties  of  memory  and 
forethought  are  among  the  foremost  of  essentially 
human  gifts.  But  man  also  looks  within ;  conscious- 
ness, that  may  also  be  called  the  birth  of  the  divine,  in 
the  race  so  nearly  allied  to  lower  species,  is  hardly 
awakened  before  the  strange  world  of  self,  so  distinct 
from  the  other  strange  world  around,  attracts  attention; 
and  in  proportion  to  the  reflective  power  of  each  mind, 
it  becomes  more  and  more  a  subject  of  study,  a  ground- 
work of  self-improvement. 

To  each  one  of  us,  then,  the  science  that  deals  with 
the  peculiarities  of  our  mental  organisation,  that  syste- 
matizes the  observations  founded  on  our  own  conscious- 
ness, and  shows  their  connection  and  their  tendencies, 
is  a  study  of  great  importance;  but  to  those  who  under- 
take the  work  of  education  it  is  indispensable,  and 
therefore  must  be  so  to  women,  the  educators  of  the 
race  by  right  divine. 

Of  all  earthly  sights  none  so  carry  us  beyond  the 
sphere  of  the  present,  to  the  infinite,  the  ideal,  the 
immortal,  as  the  lifeless  form  resting  in  the  first  solemn 
beauty  of  Death,  and  the  infant  sleeping  in  the  cradle. 
All  human  possibilities  rush  through  the  mind,  and 
almost  overpower  us  as  we  gaze  on  one  or  the  other. 
There  the  toil,  the  joy,  the  wrong-doing,  the  victory, 
are  all  over,  secured  or  missed  in  this  life  for  ever. 
Here  all  that  may  make  life  a  blessing  or  a  curse,  all 
that  may  link  it  to  the  angels,  or  to  the  lower  animals, 
whose  appetites  it  will  share — all  lies  folded  in  uncon- 


78 


HIGHEE  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN 


scions  helplessness.  The  whole  passage  from  the  one 
to  the  other  is  what  education  must  influence  and 
direct.  It  is  that  helplessness  we  have  to  help,  that 
unconsciousness  we  must  assist  to  transform  into  the 
fulness  of  mental  life.  But  how  shall  this  be  done  if 
we  have  no  distinct  aim,  no  knowledge  of  the  processes 
to  be  used,  of  the  powers  we  may  call  up  to  aid  us  ? 
Truly  the  mental,  like  the  bodily  faculties,  will  develope 
and  acquire  strength  according  to  certain  natural  laws 
of  growth ;  but  jnst  as  in  the  course  of  that  develop- 
ment many  a  slight  bodily  infirmity  becomes  illness 
from  neglect,  many  a  delicate  frame  is  crippled  through 
ignorant  treatment,  so  with  the  mind ;  tendencies  that 
might  have  been  the  seeds  of  virtue,  become  fruitful  of 
evil ;  association  and  habit,  the  educator's  all-powerful 
allies,  make  after-education  well-nigh  impossible  when 
allowed  to  sway  in  childhood,  undirected  or  misdirected; 
the  conscience,  the  moral-law  giver,  assumes  no  empire, 
because  no  care  has  made  the  inner  voice  distinct,  and 
caused  the  faint  lines  in  which  the  law  of  duty  is  writ- 
ten on  every  human  heart,  to  stand  forth  bold  and  clear 
when  brought  out  by  the  light  of  truth  and  knowledge, 
as  the  words  traced  in  invisible  ink  seem  to  start  to  life 
when  the  rays  of  heat  fall  upon  them. 

The  study  here  urged  as  essential  to  all  women  is 
that  which  will  give  this  directing  power ;  which  will 
enable  them  to  detect  mental  symptoms  as  they  should 
detect  symptoms  of  physical  disturbance,  to  read  ten- 
dencies and  know  how  to  strengthen  or  counteract 
them,  to  cultivate  the  will  and  discipline  it  to  obedi- 
ence, first  to  a  wiser  human  will,  later  to  the  voice 
of  conscience  speaking  the  will  of  the  Highest ;  to  take 


HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN  79 

care  that  authority  should  not  cramp,  that  freedom 
should  not  become  lawless,  that  the  powerful  chain  of 
association  should  be  so  forged  link  by  link,  that  each 
should  strengthen  the  other  and  give  security  to  future 
endeavours ;  that  the  mighty  sway  of  habit  should  be 
so  controlled  that  it  may  become,  not  a  tyrant  master- 
ing freer  aspiration,  but  a  minister  to  lessen  the  toil 
and  overcome  the  difficulties  of  life;  that  childish 
observation  and  curiosity  may  be  made  to  bear  their 
natural  fruit  of  love  of  knowledge  and  intelligent  in- 
terest in  the  world  around ;  that  the  strong  affections 
in  which  infant  life  is  cradled,  should  become  the  type 
of  Divine  love,  parental  rule  the  earthly  voice  of  the 
Father  in  Heaven ; — this  is  the  task  for  which  every 
woman  must  fit  herself,  if  she  would  not  perhaps  some 
day  rue  with  bitter  self-accusation  her  unh'tness  for  the 
office  to  which  Nature  herself  has  called  her. 

I  know  that  many  will  be  inclined  to  smile  at  any 
philosophical  view  of  the  mother's  early  training,  and 
think  that  it  may  be  trusted  to  love  and  common  sense. 
Unfortunately  that  trust  in  common  sense  is  always 
the  refuge  of  those  who  find  it  inconvenient  to  acquire 
knowledge.  We  never  find,  as  Whately  puts  it,  that 
the  seamen  believe  common  sense  will  suffice  to  steer 
a  ship,  or  that  the  cook  admits  the  power  of  common 
sense  to  make  a  pudding ;  and  so  on  through  all  the 
range  of  human  action,  those  who  know  contend  for 
knowledge ;  those  who  are  ignorant  put  in  the  lazy 
claim  for  common  sense.  Love,  doubtless,  has  a  power 
of  its  own,  for,  if  very  strong,  it  intensifies  observation 
on  all  that  relates  to  the  loved  object,  and  thus  far 
increases  knowledge;  but  till  we  find  the  physician 


80  HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN 

acknowledging  that  maternal  love  will  suffice  to  combat 
disease,  or  to  ward  off  constitutional  peril,  we  see  no 
grounds  for  expecting  that  the  same  love  will  be  more 
powerful  in  the  task  of  securing  the  healthy  balance  of 
the  moral  and  intellectual  nature. 

AD  other  refuge  of  those  who  oppose  these  views  is  to 
banish  mental  training  till  school  life  begins — in  other 
words,  they  would  spend  the  first  nine  or  ten  years  in 
preparing  new  difficulties  for  the  next  ten.  1  shall 
enter*  more  fully  into  this  subject  when  I  come  to  con- 
sider the  Kinder-garten  system,  the  only  philosophical 
method  of  early  education ;  here  we  are  only  pointing 
out  the  grounds  on  which  we  base  our  proposition  of 
the  indispensable  necessity  of  the  study  of  mental 
philosophy  to  women  ;  in  other  words,  the  study  of  the 
moral  and  intellectual  faculties  that  it  must  be  their 
task  first  to  train  for  the  duties  and  work  of  life.  If,  as 
I  before  said,  the  mere  teacher  can  do  only  half  his 
work  when  devoid  of  this  knowledge,  how  much  more 
does  she  require  it  who  must  educate  as  well  as  teach, 
mould  the  life  as  well  as  direct  the  outward  routine. 

And  now,  just  as  I  spoke  of  the  training  needed  to 
make  a  study  of  physiology  serve  ite  practical  purpose 
in  such  matters  as  the  supeiintendence  of  sanitary 
arrangements  and  the  care  of  the  sick,  so  here  we  have 
to  consider  the  mode  of  bringing  the  principles  of  psy- 
chology learnt  in  books  to  bear  upon  the  practical 
work  of  education.  We  cannot  say  of  either  of  these, 
great  subjects  that  their  practical  purpose  gives  them 


*  This  section  was  originally  published  before  the  Kinder-garte1 
series,  \vhich  comes  first  in  this  volume. 


HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN  81 

their  highest  interest  to  the  student.  The  metaphysi- 
cian and  the  biologist  may  never  be  called  upon  to  bring 
a  single  law  of  either  science  to  bear  in  actual  dealing 
with  their  fellow-creatures,  while  the  engrossing  interest 
of  the  speculation  remains  the  same;  but  to  society  the 
practical  application  is  of  the  highest  importance,  and 
the  most  essential  duties  of  woman's  natural  vocation 
depend  on  her  being  able  to  apply  them  rightly  and 
intelligently.  It  is  not  enough  to  one  who  may  have 
the  whole  welfare  of  a  helpless  child  cast  into  her 
hands,  to  read  about  the  intellectual  and  moral  facul- 
ties of  man.  She  must  learn  to  watch  the  early  mani- 
festations of  such  faculties,  and  to  use  each  resource 
that  the  mental  nature  affords,  to  direct  and  control, 
to  plant  and  to  weed  out,  to  form  links  for  future 
action,  to  preserve  freedom  in  the  midst  of  protecting 
care.  Infinite  pains,  infinite  patience,  minute  observa- 
tion and  careful  regard  for  the  future  in  the  midst  of 
the  difficulties  of  the  present,  all  these  are  wanted ;  and 
it  may  be  said  that  they  are  easiest  acquired  and  prac- 
tised when  to  all  other  things  is  added  the  infinite  love 
which  in  the  mother  destroys  the  feeling  of  weariness 
or  disgust.  In  one  sense  this  is  true,  and  to  that  love 
is  it  due  that,  in  spite  of  unfathomable  ignorance,  much 
has  been  done;  but  some  early  practice  before  the  heart 
is  interested,  leaves  in  this  case,  as  in  that  of  nursing, 
the  intellect  more  free  and  active  to  acquire  knowledge; 
and,  so  far  as  there  is  any  truth  in  what  we  hear  so 
often  said,  that  mothers  are  not  the  best  teachers  of 
their  own  children,  it  is  because  too-anxious  affection 
troubles  the  judgment.  There  is  an  intense  wish  to  do 
right,  with  a  sense  of  ignorance  and  a  recognition  of 


82  HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN 

frequent  failure,  which  the  ignorance  is  just  as  likely  to 
exaggerate  as  to  lessen ;  and  should  some  little  excite- 
ment or  undue  emotion  follow,  these  quickly  tell  upon 
the  child,  and  every  difficulty  is  increased.  Then 
friends  repeat, '  Mothers  cannot  teach/  while  the  truth 
is  only,  that  inexperienced  teachers  cannot  do  good 
work  any  more  than  inexperienced  cooks,  or  inexperi- 
enced statesmen.  So,  as  the  first  patients  suffer  while 
self-taught  experience  is  gathered  in  the  sick-room, 
elder  children  suffer  while  wisdom  is  painfully  learnt 
for  the  benefit  of  the  younger.  But  this  need  not  be 
so  if  education  were  kept  seriously  before  the  eyes  of 
young  women  as  a  work  they  must  fit  themselves  for ; 
and  if,  in  order  to  that  fitness,  they  not  only  made  some 
study  of  mental  philosophy,  but  also  watched  the  prac- 
tical application  of  the  laws  and  principles  of  the  science 
in  the  actual  work  of  education.  No  better  mode  of 
doing  this  for  their  special  purpose  could  probably  be 
found  than  by  going  through  a  course  of  training  in  a 
Kinder-garten  school,  where  the  early  age  of  the  pupils 
obliges  the  teachers  to  go  to  first  principles,  and  gives 
the  actual  experience  which  the  future  mother  will  first 
need  herself. 

In  the  working  of  more  advanced  schools,  though  an 
immense  deal  might  be  learned,  supposing  the  teaching 
to  be  really  good,  yet  the  instruction  which,  for  various 
reasons  not  strictly  educational,  must  then  be  given,  is 
no  longer  so  favourable  to  the  special  object  we  have  in 
view  ;  and  the  intellectual  is  almost  always  more  pro- 
minent than  the  moral  discipline,  thus  so  far  causing 
a  break  in  the  true  harmony  of  education.  Now  wjth 
the  infant  pupils  of  the  Kinder-garten  neither  of  these 


HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN  83 

difficulties  exists.  The  knowledge  given  has  one  sole 
purpose,  that  of  training  the  feeble  effort  to  learn.  The 
discipline  must  be  moral,  for  the  moral  nature  is  the 
more  developed  at  that  age,  and  without  appealing  to 
that  no  effort  of  the  budding  intelligence  would  be 
made  at  all.  A  school-boy,  though  he  is  in  a  state  of 
sulkiness  or  other  ill-temper,  or  though  he  hates  his 
teacher,  or  thinks  himself  unjustly  treated;  may  see  that 
it  is  to  his  interest  to  learn  his  lesson,  but  a  little  child 
is  simply  unable  under  such  circumstances  to  do  so.  If 
the  moral  atmosphere  be  disturbed,  he  cannot  reason 
himself  into  action,  and  he  does  not  work  at  all.  Thus 
the  most  important  principles  of  a  mother's  teaching 
are  imperatively  acted  upon  in  the  Kinder-garten,  and 
that  invaluable  secret  of  true  education,  preserving  the 
harmonious  balance  of  the  faculties,  is  revealed  to  the 
young  teacher. 

F  rebel's  system  has  not  as  yet  taken  the  place  it  de- 
serves in  England,  and  therefore  when  we  speak  of  a 
Kinder-garten  many  people  think  only  of  the  boxes  of 
toys  they  have  perhaps  bought  and  found  of  little  use, 
not  dreaming  that  the  failure  was  in  their  own  mode  of 
using  the  instruments,  without  learning  the  principle 
they  involved.  The  question,  however,  is  not  whether 
the  Kinder-garten  games  are  the  best  that  could  have 
been  devised,  but  that  no  other  system  of  early  education 
has  ever  been  scientifically  grounded.  I  might  say  that 
no  other  system  of  education  at  all  has  ever  been  worked 
out  both  morally  and  intellectually,  on  scientificprinciples; 
but,  at  any  rate,  the  early  education  is  the  best  for  study . 
Learning  to  begin  in  the  right  track  is  that  which  is  so 
unspeakably  important,  not  only  for  its  present  "results, 


$4  HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN 

but  for  the  saving  of  after-labour ;  and  is,  I  must  once 
more  repeat,  the  very  work  that  most  concerns  women 
socially  and  professionally.  It  is  this  moulding  of  the 
whole  nature  in  its  earliest  development  which  must  he 
done  by  them  or  be  left  undone,  and  it  is  this  which 
young  women  would  learn  by  attending  a  Kinder-garten 
better  than  by  any  reading,  although  the  reading  ought 
by  no  means  to  be  omitted.  Even  should  they  not 
afterwards  follow  the  exact  practice,  they  will  have  had 
their  eyes  open  to  the  importance  of  many  things 
which  they  had  never  dreamed  of  before.  When  it  is 
seen  how  carefully  and  how  philosophically  Frobel's 
system  is  directed  to  make  all  the  natural  activity  of 
the  child  conduce  to  an  educational  purpose,  how  simply 
the  germ  of  the  qualities  we  most  need  to  cultivate — of 
observation,  love  of  knowledge,  industry — is  trained  out 
of  the  child's  curiosity  about  external  things  and  wish 
to  exercise  its  own  activity,  it  will  be  acknowledged  that 
to  all  who  may  have  the  care  of  children  laid  upon  them 
as  the  highest  duty  and  responsibility  of  their  lives, 
some  time  spent  in  the  Kinder-garten  will  be  worth  a 
much  longer  period  spent  over  books ;  or  rather  that 
what  the  latter  can  teach  will  be  likely  to  bear  more 
valuable  fruit  for  being  tested  and  practised  in  the  former. 
Nor  let  it  be  supposed  that  the  time  so  spent  will 
be  wasted,  even  should  no  after-practice  of  the  system 
ever  be  required.  Various  acquirements  that  are  indis- 
pensable to  the  Kinder-garten  teacher,  such  as  perfect 
familiarity  with  the  early  portions  of  geometry,  know- 
ledge of  natural  objects,  and  of  the  first  principles  of 
natural  science,  and  of  arts  and  manufactures,  so  as 
to  be  able  to  explain  and  illustrate  them,  the  familiar 


HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN  85 

practice  of  certain  forms  of  drawing,  and,  above  all, 
the  habit  of  analyzing  mental  operations  and  of  following 
the  logical  sequence  of  the  whole  method,  will  be  found 
rich  in  future  utility,  even  should  the  student  never 
have  occasion  to  devote  another  hour  to  the  labour  of 
education.  The  process  by  which  she  will  have  learnt 
to  train  the  observing  arid  reasoning  faculties  of  young 
children  will  assuredly  have  strengthened  her  own, 
while  the  practical  application  of  principles  of  psycho- 
logy must  be  full  of  interest  and  instruction  to  every 
human  being,  whatever  the  after-course  of  their  lives. 

3.  SOCIAL  ECONOMY 

The  third  subject  pointed  out  as  'indispensable  for 
the  higher  education  of  women/  was  political,  or,  as  it 
is  frequently  termed  now,  social  economy.  The  latter 
name  is  in  several  respects  perhaps  the  best  ;  it  points 
to  the  wide  range  of  interest  that  should  come  under 
consideration,  and  thus  indicates  at  once  that  higher 
ground  is  taken  than  that  of  the  mere  profit-and-loss 
views  which  have  too  often  given  a  hard  and  narrow 
aspect  to  economical  doctrines.  The  only  objection  to 
the  new  name  is  that  it  seems  to  be  used  almost  exclu- 
sively when  women  are  addressed,  while  men  pursue 
their  study,  and  the  great  masters  write  under  the  old 
title  of  political  economy.  If,  therefore,  this  change  is 
a  euphuism,  an  attempted  disguise  in  order  to  present  a 
serious  study  sub  rosd  to  women,  I,  for  one,  would  re- 
pudiate the  term,  not  only  from  a  general  dislike  to  all 
special  adaptation  of  subjects  for  women,  but  also 
because  political  subjects  are  among  those  to  which  it  is 


86  HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN 

peculiarly  desirable  to  turn  their  attention  more  than  it 
ever  has  been  turned  hitherto.  Any  avoidance  of  the 
term  '  political/  for  the  sake  of  soothing  prejudice,  would 
therefore  not  only  be  weak,  but  wrong.  But  having 
made  this  protest,  it  is  time  to  see  what  are  the  prac- 
tical reasons  that  make  this  branch  of  the  new  science 
of  sociology  so  indispensable  for  the  higher  education  of 
women.  These  are  to  be  found,  first,  in  their  position, 
as  rulers  of  households  and  controllers  of  family  expen- 
diture ;  secondly,  in  their  frequent  intercourse  with  the 
poor.;  thirdly,  in  their  indirect  influence  on  public 
questions. 

A  woman,  whether  married  or  single,  who  has  the 
management  of  a  household  thrown  upon  her  hands, 
becomes  an  employer  of  labour,  and  the  questions  which 
on  a  large  scale  threaten  the  peace  of  society,  affect,  in 
one  shape  or  another,  the  well-being  of  every  home. 
She  spends  money  for  the  advantage  of  others,  and  if  in 
a  position  to  spend  largely,  her  example  will  tell  favour- 
ably or  unfavourably  upon  those  ever-recurring  questions 
of  allowable  or  criminal  luxury,  of  remunerative  or  un- 
remunerative  expenditure,  of  the  real  character  of  sav- 
ing and  of  extravagance  ;  and  the  habits  formed  by 
young  people  growing  up  under  her  guidance  in  right 
or  wrong  associations  on  those  points,  will  affect  the 
whole  tenor  of  their  lives  and  their  subsequent  influence 
on  society.  It  is  futile,  indeed,  to  imagine  that  it  suf- 
fices for  a  father  to  be  wise  on  subjects  such  as  these  ;  if 
he  be  counteracted  by  the  ignorance  or  the  frivolous 
habits  of  the  mother,  his  views  will  go  for  very  little. 
They  may  be  recalled  in  later  years,  but  the  opinion 
that  will  have  the  strength  of  motive  in  early  youth  will 


HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN  87 

be  that  which,  bound  up  with  feeling,  as  home-bred 
opinions  generally  are,  has  grown  up  insensibly  from 
a  powerful  association  almost  unconsciously  formed. 
Right  or  wrong,  for  good  or  for  evil,  mothers  do  so  form 
associations  which  connect  action  in  such  matters  with 
duty,  or  with  pleasure,  with  the  habit  of  seeking  the 
right  path,  or  of  indolently  acquiescing  in  prevailing 
custom ;  and  it  is  because  they  do  so  that  it  would  be 
hard  to  calculate  how  far  the  national  life  of  England 
has  been  impoverished  by  women's  ignorance  of  matters 
affecting  the  public  welfare.  The  second  consideration 
that  makes  political  economy  of  great  importance  to 
women  is  that  its  doctrines  affect  the  whole  subject  of 
charities,  our  dealings  with  the  poor  and  the  labouring 
classes  generally.  Women  are  all,  more  or  less,  occupied 
with  such  questions  ;  many,  such  as  clergymen's  wives, 
bringing  their  influence  to  bear  upon  them  daily  in  a 
position  of  quasi  authority  ;  but  if  left  to  deal  ignorantly 
with  them,  they  must  do  mischief — social  mischief,  in 
spreading  and  rooting  the  evils  our  better  knowledge  is 
striving  to  eradicate — religious  mischief,  by  bringing 
down  upon  the  great  Christian  virtue  of  charity  the 
scorn  of  those  who  hold  scientific  truth.  When  women 
shall  have  mastered  the  needful  worldly  knowledge, 
they  may  find  it  to  be  their  mission  to  show  forth  how 
such  knowledge  can  be  made  to  help  the  work  laid  upon 
the  disciples  of  Him  who  '  went  about  doing  good.' 

An  enormous  proportion  of  the  voluntary  labour  done 
among  the  poor  is  done  by  women,  and  it  would  seem 
almost  absurd  even  to  ask  if  it  can  be  supposed  that 
the  same  zeal,  applied  upon  right  principles,  and  with 
that  order  and  method  that  belong  to  well-instructed 


88  HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN 

minds,  would  not  produce  a  very  different  effect  from 
that  which  we  generally  behold.  Women  are  less 
amenable  to  the  influence  of  superior  knowledge  in 
this  matter  than  they  are  to  the  common-place  clerical 
influence,  because  the  latter  appeals  to  feelings  which 
they  do  understand,  while  the  former  appeals  to  a  range 
of  ideas  unfamiliar  to  them.  Knowledge  is  valued  by 
those  who  have  knowledge  enough  to  see  why  it  should 
hold  sway  ;  while  ignorance  is  stubborn,  simply  because 
it  is  ignorant.  Yet  people  continually  wonder  that  those 
who  know  nothing  should  not  recognise  that  great  prin- 
ciple of  the  rightful  sway  of  wisdom. 

The  combined  ignorance  and  mistaken  piety  of  our 
fathers  formerly  brought  the  labouring  population  of 
England  nigh  to  a  state  of  general  pauperism,  and  the 
same  causes  still  combine  to  perpetuate  in  some  mea- 
sure the  same  evils.  Indolent  philanthropists,  clergy- 
men, and  women  acting  under  their  influence,  are  those 
who  continually  place  hindrances  in  the  way  of  a  more 
healthy  state  of  things. 

In  the  early  days  of  Romanist  corruption,  almsgiving 
was  preached  as  an  easy  substitute  for  Christian  morals ; 
in  these  latter  days  it  is  still  commended  as  Christian 
charity ;  and  the  efforts  of  those  who  would  introduce  a 
better  system  are  denounced  and  often  frustrated  on 
the  authority  of  Scripture  texts  applying  to  a  wholly 
different  condition  of  society.  Yet,  if  ever  the  nation  is 
to  be  taught  thrift  and  independence — in  other  words, 
is  to  be  raised  from  a  degraded  to  a  comparatively 
moral  condition — it  will  be  thanks  to  the  disciples  of 
that  economic  science  which  has  been  condemned  as 
teaching  harshness  to  the  poor  and  forgett'ulness  of 


HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN  89 

duty  to  the  rich.  Study  of  the  real  principles  of  the 
science  will  make  evident  how  much  remains  to  be 
done  by  individual  effort  in  the  truest  spirit  of  charity 
among  our  more  ignorant  brethren;  how  much  edu- 
cated women  especially,  in  going  among  the  poor,  can 
do  to  lessen  their  ignorance  on  these  matters,  to  remove 
the  feeling  that  such  dealings  are  dictated  by  harsh- 
ness, to  teach  the  women  of  the  working  classes,  and 
through  them  to  influence  the  men.  How  much  might 
be  done  in  this  manner  towards  increasing  savings  and 
diminishing  strikes  it  is  difficult  to  estimate  ;  and  when 
any  subject  is  of  such  wide  application  that  to  have  due 
influence  it  needs  to  take  root  at  home,  we  may. rest 
assured  that  it  is  only  through  the  instrumentality  of 
women  we  shall  attain  the  purpose. 

The  widest  application  of  sound  doctrines  on  these 
subjects  has  been  that  worked  out  by  the  Charity  Orga- 
nization Society ;  and  if  women  wish  to  learn  what  may 
be  done  by  ardent  charity  rightly  directed,  let  them 
inquire  into  the  labour  of  Miss  Octavia  Hill ;  see  foul 
dens  turned  into  healthy  homes,  a  pauper  population 
raised  to  honest  independence,  by  the  combination 
(alas !  so  rare)  of  true  philanthropy  and  true  know- 
ledge, in  her  who  was  at  once  their  teacher  and  their 
practical  helper. 

The  success  that  has  attended  the  efforts  of  the  ladies 
who,  in  connection  with  the  Yorkshire  Board  of  Educa- 
tion, have  lectured  to  poor  women  on  domestic  economy 
and  the  laws  of  health  as  applied  to  the  care  of  dwell- 
ings and  of  children,  affords  another  example  of  what 
we  may  hope  to  see  accomplished  when  sound  know- 
ledge shall  enlighten  the  charity  in  which  women  have 


90  HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN" 

never  been  defective.  Hundreds  of  poor  mothers  have 
gathered  at  work  meetings  and  other  places  to  learn 
from  those  ladies,  and  have  so  quickly  felt  the  value  of 
the  knowledge  imparted  that  they  themselves  spread 
the  fame  of  the  lecturer,  and  bring  friends  and  relations 
to  listen. 

This  is  true  charity,  but  it  cannot  be  practised  by  the 
ignorant. 

Lastly,  women  exercise,  whether  we  will  or  no,  an 
immense  indirect  influence  on  political  life.  That  alone 
points  out  the  importance  of  turning  their  minds  to 
the  sober  study  of  such  questions ;  they  will  affect  them 
somehow  or  other,  ignorantly  or  wisely,  according  as 
they  are  prepared.  We  do  not  here  enter  into  political 
questions,  strictly  so  called ;  but  the  consideration  of 
whether  or  not  women  should  learn  to  take  a  serious 
and  large  interest  in  political  action — that  is,  in  public 
action  involving  the  national  welfare — is  distinctly  an 
educational  question,  and  that  the  study  of  political 
economy  will  turn  the  attention  to  the  wider  field  of 
national  life  in  all  its  aspects  is  one  of  the  reasons  that 
makes  it  educationally  valuable.  Hitherto  the  interest 
of  women  in  politics  has  generally  been  personal,  and 
has,  therefore,  risen  to  fever-heat  in  times  of  war  or  of 
parliamentary  or  electioneering  excitement,  to  sink  to 
zero  in  those  times  of  far  more  enduring  national 
importance  when  all  the  forces  of  society  are  acting 
undisturbed,  when  the  working  of  opinion  is  like  the 
rJow  of  a  full,  deep  stream,  not  the  noisy  fury  of  the 
torrent  in  its  momentary  excitement,  and  the  results 
of  action  are  far-reaching  and  deep-seated  rather  than 
brilliant.  In  such  times  the  tone  of  public  feeling  in 


HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN  91 

men  also  is  too  often  far  from  being  a  high  one ;  and 
if  it  be  so,  if  patriotism  which  would  kindle  at  the 
approach  of  a  storm  cools  while  a  nation  is  gliding  into 
danger,  it  may  be  attributed  not  a  little  to  that  very 
fact  of  women's  indifference  to  and  ignorance  of  poli- 
tics. Women  quickly  feel  the  grandeur  of  heroic  action 
or  character,  and  the  generation  succeeding  one  that 
has  lived  through  the  fearful  excitement  of  a  great  war 
grows  up  under  the  home  influence  of  patriotic  senti- 
ment. The  mother's  strong  emotions  have  worked  upon 
he'r  sons ;  and  this  may  be  no  inconsiderable  cause — 
though  one  hitherto  unnoticed  by  historians — of  the 
active  public  progress  that  is  generally  made  by  a  nation 
after  a  period  -of  trial  and  suffering.  But  emotion  dies 
away  ;  women  return  to  the  apathy  of  ignorance,  and 
hence  the  next  generation  does  not  bear  from  home  into 
the  world  those  watchwords  of  public  duty,  love  of  coun- 
try, self-sacrifice  for  a  noble  cause,  which  were  echoed 
from  every  hearth  when  the  women's  hearts  were  stirred. 
Truly,  men  who  wish  right  principles  to  become  a 
moving  power  in  society,  and  neglect  the  aid  of  women 
in  enforcing  them,  are  not  unlike  one  who  should  spend 
his  force  on  hammering  cold  iron,  while  neglecting  the 
furnace  at  his  hand,  whose  glow  would  make  that  thank- 
less toil  easy  and  effective.  In  one  momentous  subject 
only  has  it  been  generally  allowed  that  women  have 
necessarily  the  same  interest  as  men  ;  and  with  regard 
to  this,  history  teaches  us  some  instructive  lessons.  If 
the  early  Christians  had  disdained  the  co-operation  of 
women,  how  many  more  generations  would  have  passed 
away  ere  the  religion  of  the  Cross  had  driven  from  homes 
and  temples  the  impure  rites  of  the  ancient  gods  !  If 


92  HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN 

Luther  and  the  other  great  reformers  had  been  content 
to  leave  women  outside  the  movement,  to  abandon 
them  to  the  ignorance  and  the  spiritual  subjection 
which  they  cast  off  themselves,  how  much  longer  would 
the  era  of  religious  freedom  have  been  delayed  ! 

This  age  in  which  we  live  is  essentially  one  of  social 
reform — reform  needing  the  united  action  of  unselfish 
feeling  and  of  sound  knowledge  based  on  scientific 
truth,  and  carried  forward  on  that  '  wave  of  emotion ' 
which  transforms  conviction  into  motive ;  and  therefore 
it  is  that  the  subtle  and  powerful  influence  of  women  is 
so  much  needed  as  an  instrument  of  national  welfare, 
"and  that  the  study  that  peculiarly  deals  with  social 
questions  is  one  of  the  indispensable  studies  for  their 
higher  education. 

Having  thus  briefly  considered  the  three  studies 
I  have  pointed  out  as  essential  to  the  higher  educa- 
tion for  women,  it  remains,  finally,  to  say  a  few  words 
to  guard  myself  against  misunderstanding,  owing  to 
the  apparent  exclusion  of  subjects  more  generally 
valued. 

The  term  'higher  education'  is  intended,  as  said 
before,  to  designate  the  instruction  given  after  school 
age,  the  course  of  studies  which,  like  the  university  or 
professional  education  of  men,  does  more  or  less 
discipline  the  maturer  faculties,  and  prepare  for  the 
actual  business  of  life.  It  is  evident,  therefore,  that 
the  three  subjects  named  could  have  no  pretension  to 
be  a  complete  curriculum  of  such  studies.  Viewed  as 
discipline  only,  whatever  subjects  the  experience  of 
generations  has  pointed  out  as  best  for  strengthening 
and  developing  the  various  powers  of  the  mind  in  the 


HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN  98 

one  sex,  must  be  equally  fitted  to  promote  the  same 
purpose  for  the  other;  but  I  am  far  from  believing 
that  the  same  course  must  necessarily  be  followed. 
On  the  contrary,  the  more  principles  of  education  are 
studied,  the  more  will  it  be  recognised  that  methods  are 
of  so  much  more  importance  than  subjects,  that  a  true 
educator  will  make  any  simple  pursuit,  the  means  of 
which  may  be  nearest  at  hand,  do  more  towards 
drawing  out  and  strengthening  the  faculties  of  his 
pupils,  than  is  often  done  by  the  process  of  qualifying 
for  university  honours  through  the  study  of  some  of  the 
highest  subjects  on  which  the  human  intellect  can  be 
employed.  With  regard  to  training  for  the  business  of 
life,  whenever  women  obtain  an  entrance  into  any 
profession,  the  studies  requisite  for  that  will  become 
the  school  of  higher  education  for  them,  as  for  men; 
but  the  peculiarity  in  their  case  which  made  me  point 
out  as  essential  the  three  subjects  above  mentioned,  is 
that  great  fact  of  nature  which  assigns  to  women  one 
special  calling  requiring  careful  training  of  the  highest 
kind  apart  from  any  other  study,  whether  of  choice  or 
profession,  that  they  engage  in.  If  a  man  marries,  his 
active  life  in  the  world  remains  unaltered  ;  but  marriage 
to  a  woman,  even  if  it  should  not  withdraw  her  from 
any  money-making  calling  she  may  have  followed  as 
single,  will  probably  open  up  new  duties,  adding  another 
profession  at  home  to  that  which  she  has  studied  for 
out  of  home.  And  it  is  this  peculiar  position,  for  which 
the  course  of  higher  culture  indicated  in  these  pages  is 
intended  to  prepare.  Physiology  and  Mental  Philo- 
sophy, bearing  evidently  and  directly  on  education, 
which  in  that  new  home-calling  becomes  the  woman's 


94  HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN 

first  great  duty ;  and  the  third,  Political  Economy, 
referring  to  her  obligation  as  a  member  of  society,  as  a 
citizen  of  the  state,  which  women  are  too  apt  to  forget, 
but  which  in  the  position  of  heads  of  households  it  is  no 
longer  pardonable  to  overlook. 

Thus,  I  repeat,  these  three  subjects  occupy  peculiar 
ground  and  legitimately  claim  to  be  essential,  as 
distinguished  from  others  which  are  nevertheless 
eminently  desirable  in  any  complete  view  of  higher 
culture. 

No  subject  can  be  chosen  from  the  vast  range  of 
knowledge  and  of  human  interests  that  may  not  with 
advantage  find  a  place  in  studies  having  such  culture 
for  its  object. 

Those  most  generally  in  favour  are  History  and 
Literature,  and  it  is  difficult  to  overrate  their  value. 
Literature,  the  highest  product  of  our  great  human  gift 
of  language,  the  inheritance  bequeathed  by  each  nation 
from  generation  to  generation  of  its  people,  treasuring 
the  tradition  of  the  past,  and  enriched  as  time  flows  on 
with  all  that  fresh  knowledge  and  new  views  of  thought 
or  imagination  have  given  to  feed  or  delight  the  human 
soul, —  literature  is  the  highest  manifestation  of  the—- 
spirit of  man  speaking  to  present  and  future  genera- 
tions :  and  to  discuss  the  value  of  such  a  study,  whether 
pursued  through  one  language  or  through  several,  is 
like  discussing  the  value  of  feeling  the  beauties  of 
Nature,  or  the  grandeur  of  heroic  action ;  it  is  simply 
above  discussion. 

Till  the  field  of  knowledge  grew  so  rich  that  men 
were  forced  to  confess  the  impossibility  of  compassing 
all,  and  the  difficulty  of  choosing  the  best,  and  till  the 


HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN  95 

money  value  of  knowledge  had  introduced  new  and 
fallacious  tests  to  direct  the  choice,  none  doubted  the 
supreme  value  of  letters  in  education  ;  and  no  man 
born  to  the  inheritance  of  such  a  literature  as  our  own 
could,  without  something  like  treason  to  his  country, 
undervalue  its  influence  now.  Yet  in  rny  opinion  it 
scarcely  in  the  present  day  holds  its  legitimate  place 
in  education  or  in  society. 

History  has  no  such  wide,  indisputable  claim  upon 
our  affections  as  have  those  poetic  creations,  those 
utterances  of  wisdom,  that  literature  has  preserved  for 
us  through  ages  past ;  but  it  is  to  all  who  study  human 
nature  a  source  of  imperishable  interest.  There,  the 
psychologist,  the  educator,  the  politician,  find  the 
examples  and  illustrations  of  the  great  principles  they 
inculcate ;  there,  on  a  great  scale,  we  see  the  passions, 
the  poetry,  the  base  selfishness,  the  sublime  self- 
devotion,  of  which  we  study  the  springs  and  seek  to 
direct  the  movements  in  the  government  of  nations 
and  in  the  training  of  each  human  being.  To  women 
especially,  whose  actual  experience  is  generally  so 
limited,  the  study  of  history  is  invaluable;  it  is  im- 
possible to  find  a  substitute  for  it  in  the  labour  of 
directing  young  minds  from  individual  to  general 
interests;  from  idiosyncrasies  to  great  human  character- 
istics; from  small  and  narrow  views  of  the  world  and  of 
duty,  to  large  considerations  of  order  and  law,  and 
moral  purpose  over-riding  all  selfish,  schemes  of  parties 
or  of  nations.  Other  grounds  for  the  value  of  history 
there  are  in  abundance,  but  these  are  enough.  So 
long  as  we  value  our  place  in  the  great  human  family ; 
so  long  as  we  recognise  an  inheritance  from  the  past, 


96  HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN 

or  labour  in  hope  of  progress  for  the  future,  so  long 
must  history  be  one  of  the  subjects  which  claim  an 
honoured  place  in  every  system  of  higher  education. 

I  have  spoken  of  these  two  subjects  as  the  most 
common  and  the  most  popular  of  those  generally  pro- 
posed for  lectures,  merely  to  prevent  my  being  supposed 
to  undervalue  them.  Of  less  popular  ones,  such  as 
logic,  or  physical  science,  or  mathematics,  I  might  be 
yet  more  inclined  to  speak,  owing  to  their  very  un- 
popularity, but,  as  before  said,  my  purpose  is  not  to 
frame  any  complete  curriculum  of  higher  studies.  These 
are  in  large  measure  better  left  to  choice.  Each 
subject  thoroughly  studied  becomes  necessarily  the 
centre  of  many  inquiries  and  interests.  Each  of  the 
three  subjects,  for  instance,  mentioned  as  essential, 
would  lead  the  student  into  a  wide  field  of  connected 
subjects  —  Political  Economy,  appealing  to  History  ; 
Human  Physiology,  opening  the  way  to  Comparative 
Physiology  and  to  Natural  History  in  its  many  branches, 
and  to  Geology  as  the  record  of  past  history  and  changes 
— the  mere  study  of  Kinder-garden  education  turning 
the  mind  not  only  to  natural  history,  but  to  physical 
science  and  mathematics,  and  to  art,  the  elements 
of  which  the  teacher  must  have  thoroughly  mastered, 
while  any  one  portion  of  these  various  studies  can  be 
followed  up  more  fully  as  inclination  may  direct.  The 
range  is  wide  enough,  and  choice  cannot  be  too  free. 
Holding  on  certain  definite  grounds  a  few  studies  to 
be  indispensable,  I  would  exclude  none.  So  long  as 
essentials  are  never  lost  sight  of,  let  us  add  as  much 
vigorous  discipline  of  the  understanding  in  other 
directions,  as  many  more  graces  of  high  culture, 


HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN  97 

as  time,  or  means,  or  occasion  may  permit.  Our  object, 
in  short,  is  not  to  limit,  but  simply  to  insure  that  one 
indispensable  harvest  shall  be  reaped  before  labour  is 
diverted  to  new  fields  and  more  varied  cultivation ;  to 
remind  women  that  whatever  their  chosen  path  of 
activity,  they  have  one  God -given  mission  whose  claims 
siusi  be  paramount  to  all. 


APPENDIX 


APPENDIX* 


SOME  DIFFICULTIES  CONNECTED  WITH 
KINDER-GARTEN  TEACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

THE  introduction  of  Frobel's  system  into  this  country  is 
attended  by  some  peculiar  difficulties,  to  which  it  may 
not  be  useless  to  draw  attention  in  order  that  its  friends 
may  be  prepared  to  meet  them.  They  spring  from  its 
foreign  origin,  which  makes  its  naturalisation  among  us 
slow  and  troublesome.  These  difficulties  may  be  classed 
under  two  heads,  the  want  of  teachers  and  the  want  of 


*  Many  of  the  remarks  in  this  appendix  are  in  somo  degree  out  of 
date  ;  but  I  let  them  stand,  because  it  is  in  detail  only,  not  in  the 
spirit,  that  they  are  now  inaccurate  ;  the  difficulties  remain  the  same, 
and  must  still  be  met  in  the  same  manner.  The  training  of  English 
teachers,  so  strongly  insisted  upon  here,  has  been  prosecuted  with  zeal ; 
and  though  the  success  has  not  yet  been  such  as  we  hoped,  the  com- 
parative failure  has  been  from  causes  which  only  experience  could 
bring  to  light,  ami  which  we  hope  to  deal  with  more  successfully  in 
the  future.  So  with  regard  to  the  certificates  given  by  the  Frobel 
Society,  on  the  results  of  independent  examination,  we  are  as  much 
convinced  as  ever  that  this  is  the  right  method,  and  any  partial 
failure  has  been  owing  to  the  inevitable  slowness  of  working  a  new 
system,  and  to  cau.se?,  altogether  foreign  to  our  original  design. 


102  APPENDIX 

books ;  to  which  we  may  add  a  third,  the  reluctance  in 
England  to  believe  that  considerable  training  and 
knowledge  can  be  wanted  for  the  teachers  of  little 
children  from  three  to  seven  or  eight  years  old.  A  few 
words,  then,  upon  each  of  these  points  may  be  useful 
here.  I  shall  quote  mainly  from  an  address  I  had 
occasion  to  make  some  weeks  ago  to  the  Frobel  Society, 
pointing  out  these  difficulties  to  them  as  marking  the 
direction  in  which,  as  it  seemed  to  me,  their  immediate 
exertions  should  tend. 

The  first  difficulty  we  have  to  overcome  is  that  of 
procuring  Kinder-garten  mistresses,  and  with  all  due 
respect  for  the  admirable  foreign  teachers  who  are  work- 
ing among  us,  it  must  be  admitted  that  in  order  to 
popularise  the  system,  to  make  it  take  root  in  this 
country,  it  must  be  worked  by  English  women.  Hither- 
to, in  most  cases,  when  it  has  been  desired  to  establish 
a  Kinder-garten,  the  difficulty  of  getting  an  English 
mistress  has  been  the  great  obstacle.  Some  enterprising 
persons  have  sent  over  to  Germany  for  teachers,  but 
naturally  they  come  speaking  a  foreign  language  with- 
out ease,  and  are  unfamiliar  with  all  the  surroundings 
of  the  children,  whereas  a  teacher  should  be  familiar 
with  every  detail  which  goes  to  build  up  the  child's 
mental  life.  This  difficulty  is  felt  with  mere  servants, 
who  are  brought  over  to  talk  a  foreign  language  to 
children.  Yet  they  live  in  the  same  house  and  quickly 
familiarise  themselves  with  its  circumstances,  while  the 
schoolmistress  lives  apart  and  only  meets  her  little 
pupils  at  stated  hours,  so  that  a  long  time  must  elapse 
before  she  can  bridge  over  the  distance  between  them. 
Some  persons  have  planned  sending  English  girls  to  be 


APPENDIX  103 

trained  in  Germany,  but  there  the  difficulty  of  the 
language  meets  us  again.  The  proposed  students  per- 
haps know  nothing  of  German,  at  best  they  know  it 
from  school  teaching  only,  and  much  time  is  wasted 
before  they  can  derive  full  benefit  from  the  special 
training  they  have  gone  to  seek.  We  shall  never 
make  wide  progress  till  these  obstacles  are  removed. 
The  system  cannot  acquire  vigour  among  us  till  it  has 
a  native  growth,  until  then  it  will  be  only  as  an  exotic, 
needing  care  and  propping  up  amid  the  free  and  hardy 
vegetation  native  to  the  soil. 

Closely  connected  with  this  part  of  the  work  of  the 
Society  is  that  of  using  its  influence  to  ensure  that 
Kinder-garten  teachers  are  not  only  duly  instructed  in 
their  special  office,  but  that  they  are  as  far  as  possible 
well-educated  women.  The  wider  the  culture  any  mind 
has  received,  the  greater  its  aptitude  for  recognising 
and  acting  upon  philosophical  principles ;  and  con- 
versely, the  narrower  the  culture  the  greater  the  in- 
capacity for  going  beyond  the  rule  of  thumb,  and  often 
the  greater  the  aversion  to  even  recognising  that  there 
may  be  something  beyond  it.  In  all  departments  of 
instruction  it  is  essential  that  the  teacher  should  not 
be  a  mere  recipient  and  detailer  of  knowledge,  that  he 
or  she  should  draw  from  a  living  spring,  not  from  a 
rarely-filled  tank ;  but  in  teaching  little  children, 
especially  in  using  a  method  in  which  every  detail  is 
part  of  a  connected,  logical  whole,  it  is  more  than  ever 
necessary  that  the  teacher  should  speak  from  a  full 
mind,  that  her  own  observations  or  reading  should 
supply  her  with  illustrations,  her  own  knowledge  enable 
her  to  answer  the  questions  which  the  children  will 


104 


APPENDIX 


ask,  and  which  they  will  certainly  not  often  put  in 
the  convenient  form  which  will  allow  the  answers  of 
text-books  to  be  given.  The  child's  nature  unfolds 
spontaneously,  and  the  teachers  must  be  able  spon- 
taneously also  to  meet  the  requirements  of  that  growth. 
The  course  of  instruction  for  Kinder-garten  teachers 
ranges  over  so  large  an  area  that  in  itself  it  forces  a 
considerable  amount  of  knowledge.  The  best  authori- 
ties are  agreed  that  it  should  form  a  two  years'  course 
of  study,  the  first  given  to  acquiring  thorough  mastery 
of  Frobel's  theory  and  of  the  occupations  through  which 
it  is  applied  in  teaching,  and  also  that  amount  of 
instruction  in  various  branches  of  knowledge  which  are 
requisite  for  the  teachers;  the  second  to  be  spent  in 
practical  work  as  an  assistant  in  a  Kinder-garten. 
Owing  to  the  scarcity  of  training-classes,  and  the  still 
greater  scarcity  of  good  Kinder-gartens  in  which  the 
year  of  probation  would  be  profitably  spent,  both  these 
conditions  are  difficult.  Another  difficulty  arises  from 
ignorance  or  prejudice,  too  generally  prevailing  in  the 
English  public.  We  are  apt  to  be  very  impatient  of 
preliminary  study,  we  want  quick  and  ready  methods, 
and  are  too  apt  to  take  an  ill-made  by-path  for  a  high 
road  to  knowledge.  We  readily  concede  an  apprentice- 
ship of  several  years  for  a  mere  handicraft,  but  grudge 
half  the  time  to  that  noblest  of  crafts  which  fashions 
the  human  creature  for  the  work  and  duties  of  life,  for 
service  to  God  and  man.  There  is  among  many  people 
a  notion  that  girls  who  have  left  school  unfit  to  become 
ordinary  governessess,  may  easily  by  a  few  lessons  in  the 
art  of  using  Frobel's  'gifts,'  turn  their  insignificance 
to  account  in  a  Kinder-garten ;  but  every  effort  of  this 


APPENDIX  105 

Society  should  be  used  against  such  a  fearful  subversion 
of  its  objects,  remembering  that  the  Kinder-garten  is 
either  an  indifferent  infant  school  or  the  practical  appli- 
cation of  the  only  philosophical  system  yet  devised, 
according  to  the  hands  into  which  it  falls. 

A  training-school  for  Kinder-garten  teachers  has  been 
at  work  for  three  years  in  Manchester,  and  certificates 
for  first-class  mistresses  are  given  to  the  successful 
candidates  after  a  two  years'  course  of  study  and  practice, 
and  for  second-class  or  assistant  mistresses  to  those  who 
reach  a  lower  point  of  attainment.  In  like  manner  it 
has  been  decided  that  examinations  shall  be  held  under 
the  auspices  of  the  Frobel  Society  for  students  trained 
in  any  of  the  different  classes  now  at  work,  and  for  any 
others  who  may  present  themselves  after  private  study, 
and  wish  to  have  their  qualification  tested.  Certificates 
will  be  granted  according  to  the  result  of  the  examina- 
tion. An  opportunity  is  thus  afforded  of  taking  some 
important  steps  towards  establishing  a  standard  of 
efficiency  for  English  Kinder-garten  teachers,  including 
the  degree  of  general  knowledge  which  is  the  necessary 
preliminary  of  all  special  or  professional  culture.  In 
France  and  in  Germany  this  includes  a  considerable 
amount ;  one  foreign  language  being  required  in  addi- 
tion to  thorough  grounding  in  the  usual  branches  of 
school  instruction.  With  us  we  should  probably  be 
obliged  to  place  the  standard  lower  at  first,  to  meet  the 
many  cases  where  such  general  knowledge  has  been 
scantily  provided  for  in  ordinary  school-teaching.  But 
it  would  be  a  great  error  to  suppose  that  a  teacher  is 
fitted  for  her  work  by  immediate  Kinder-garten  training 
alone.  Frobel's  method  requires  much  speaking,  and  a 


106  APPENDIX 

teacher  must  speak  fluently  and  correctly,  which  of 
course  she  will  not  do  without  sound  grammatical  know- 
ledge and  habit  of  easy  composition.  Arithmetic  is 
essential  to  Kinder-garten  teaching,  and  its  peculiar 
method  of  making  the  children  discover  the  principles 
for  themselves  could  not  be  practised  by  one  who  was 
not  familiar  with  the  ordinary  processes.  As  with  the 
Arithmetical  so  with  the  Geometrical  notions  they 
impart,  the  teacher  must  be  acquainted  with  the  subject 
in  its  proper  form  before  she  will  draw  from  the 
exercises  with  cubes  and  the  drawing  of  geometrical 
figures,  all  the  lessons  the  children  are  made  to  teach 
themselves  under  skilful  guidance.  The  Geography 
also  should  of  course  range  beyond  that  of  England, 
and  especially  include  the  elements  of  physical  geo- 
graphy, which  kindle  the  greatest  interest  in  children, 
to  whom  a  common  map  is  a  dead  letter.  And  in 
History  and  Literature  some  proficiency  would  be 
required,  first  as  the  essential  stamp  of  a  careful 
education,  and  secondly,  because  few  subjects  so  much 
contribute  to  enrich  the  mind,  to  furnish  it  with  matter 
for  illustration  and  knowledge  of  character,  both  so 
essential  in  the  work  of  education.  The  fact  that  teach- 
ing is  free  in  this  country,  i.e.,  that  no  regulations  pre- 
vent any  ignorant  pretenders  from  trading  upon  the 
equal  or  greater  ignorance  of  parents,  is  one  which  tends 
to  lower  the  general  level  of  teaching  power  in 
England.  There  is  no  necessity  of  working  up  to  a 
certain  standard,  and  the  best  only,  either  of  teachers  or 
those  who  employ  them,  are  able  to  fix  a  standard  for 
themselves.  But  in  a  new  and  foreign  system  like  this, 
in  regard  to  which  the  public  cannot  but  feel  their  own 


APPENDIX  107 

ignorance,  the  value  of  a  certificate  of  competency  is 
more  likely  to  be  recognised,  and  we  may  believe  that 
teachers  who  do  obtain  such  a  certificate  from  a  Society 
that  gives  it  only  on  the  verdict  of  competent  and 
independent  examiners,  will  have  a  better  prospect  of 
employment  than  others  whose  work  shall  only  have 
been  certified  by  the  teachers  under  whom  they  have 
studied.  It  is  said  that  many  elementary  school- 
mistresses are  studying  the  method  and  may  come  up 
for  examination.  This  deserves  all  encouragement,  and 
should  be  met  by  great  indulgence  in  the  examiners  at 
this  early  period  of  our  undertaking.  The  English  part 
of  the  examination  these  mistresses  will  of  course  easily 
pass,  or  their  Government  certificate  may  perhaps  be 
taken  as  exempting  them  from  it;  their  difficulty  is  an 
immense  one,  it  is  that  of  obtaining  any  sufficient 
knowledge  of  Frobel's  method  through  the  medium 
of  such  scanty  works  as  we  possess  in  English,  of 
acquiring  the  elements  of  physical  science  which  are 
indispensable  for  the  Kinder-garten  teacher.  One 
accustomed  to  teaching,  and  having  had  the  training 
which  that  class  of  teachers  alone  obtain  in  England, 
would,  with  the  help  of  good  books,  probably  master 
the  Kinder-garten  method  without  much  difficulty,  but 
science  is  so  deplorably  neglected  in  our  schools  that 
the  botany,  physiology,  natural  history,  and  elementary 
physics,  which  are  essential,  will  have  to  be  studied 
for  the  purpose ;  still,  in  our  present  condition,  we 
must  rejoice  that  any  have  zeal  and  courage  to  add 
this  labour  to  their  already  laborious  lives,  and  give  a 
hearty  welcome  to  their  efforts. 

Our  object  is  to  inoculate  the  country  at  large  with 


108  APPENDIX 


these  new  principles,  and  elementary  schoolmistresses 
will  afford  us  invaluable  aid,  since  through  them  we 
reach  directly  a  very  large  class  of  children,  and  one  for 
whom  the  Kinder-garten  is  pre-eminently  valuable.  In 
the  short  school  life  of  these  children  there  is  no  time 
for  correcting  the  blunders  of  early  training,  while  we 
may  safely  say  that  instruction  given  to  them  from  seven 
to  ten  or  eleven  years  of  age  would  be  profitable  in  a 
fourfold  degree  if  their  minds  had  been  previously 
trained,as  they  would  be  in  the  Kinder-garten,  to  observe, 
to  inquire,  to  work  accurately,  and  to  live  in  orderly 
obedience  and  harmony.  The  whole  nature  of  the  child 
would  come  in  a  higher  state  of  preparation  under  the 
influence  of  the  ordinary  schoolmaster  or  mistress,  and 
the  short  time  they  can  command  will  be  proportionately 
fruitful  of  good  results.  These  considerations  make  us 
feel  that  every  effort  to  introduce  the  system  intelligently 
into  elementary  schools  should  be  welcomed,  and  every- 
thing done  to  meet  the  meritorious  efforts  of  mistresses 
who  study  in  the  intervals  of  fatiguing  daily  work. 
They  stand  in  a  different  category  from  young  students, 
who,  free  as  yet  from  the  trammels  of  practical  life,  can 
study  under  good  tuition,  and  therefore  should  be  ex- 
pected to  reach  the  highest  efficiency,  and  must  be 
supposed  ambitious  to  reach  it. 

We  come  next  to  writing  as  a  means  of  spreading 
knowledge  of  the  subject.  I  have  said  that  the  books  are 
buried  in  a  foreign  language,  but  more,  and  worse  than 
that,  they  are  separated  from  us  by  the  strange  invisible 
lines  of  foreign  thought.  Nothing  is  easier  than  to  have 
bocks  translated  from  one  language  to  another,  but  far 
different  is  it  to  lift  them  from  one  region  of  national 


APPENDIX  109 

thought  and  sentiment  to  another,  and  yet  this  must  be 
done  in  a  subject  like  ours  if  we  are  to  make  real  use  of 
the  valuable  materials  the  Germans  have  elaborated  for 
us.  In  matters  of  science  and  history,  of  classical  learn- 
ing or  abstruse  philosophy,  in  all  of  which  the  other 
nations  of  Europe  have  borrowed  so  largely  from  the 
Germans,  the  form  of  the  thought  as  influenced  by  native 
associations  and  mental  habits  is  of  comparatively  little 
importance,  and  minds  habitually  occupied  with  such 
matters  are  fit  to  deal  easily  with  minor  difficulties. 
But  we  have  not  only  a  difficult  subject  to  study,  we 
require  to  popularise  it.  If  we  translate  books  it  is  for 
the  sake  of  the  unlearned,  of  the  young,  who  are  neces- 
sarily unable  to  allow  for  national  modes  of  thought, 
of  the  hard- worked  teachers,  whose  scanty  leisure  for 
reading  is  heavily  overtaxed  if  books  are  made  abstruse 
by  their  method  as  well  as  their  matter. 

It  is  this  difficulty  which  has  hindered  the  translation 
of  several  works  that  would  be  of  great  value  to  us. 
Frobel  is  a  difficult  author  to  his  own  countrymen, 
defective  in  style  and  in  that  methodical  arrangement 
of  facts  or  speculation  which,  more  than  anything  else, 
makes  a  difficult  subject  clear.  The  valuable  work  of 
Mde.  Marenholtz  Billow,  on  'Labour  and  the  New 
Education,'  as  she  calls  Frobel's  system,  could  not  be 
advantageously  translated  as  it  stands,  because  portions 
of  it  are  too  alien  to  our  modes  of  thought  to  obtain 
acceptance,  and  would  therefore  hinder  our  purpose  of 
popularising  the  subject.  The  same  criticism  applies  to 
Hanschmann's  exposition  of  the  system  through  the 
medium  of  a  biography  of  Frobel,  a  valuable  and  de- 
lightful book,  but  in  which  the  common  English  reader 


110  APPENDIX 

unused  to  German  views  and  method  of  rendering  them, 
would  find  much  that  would  rather  deter  him  from 
than  excite  him  to  the  study,  especially  when  presented 
in  the  often  ill-fitting  garb  of  translation.*  Yet  we 
must  get  at  the  matter  of  these  and  other  German 
works,  for  the  knowledge  we  seek  is  there ;  and  it  is  to 
be  hoped  that  among  the  friends  of  the  system  will  be 
found  some  good  German  scholars,  persons  able  to  read 
and  meditate  on  these  German  books  I  am  speaking  of,  to 
imbue  their  own  minds  with  the  doctrines  they  present, 
and  to  give  them  to  us,  not  in  translation,  when  exact 
translation  is  unadvisable,  but  in  a  truly  English  form  ; 
in  writings,  whose  illusions  and  imagery,  the  associations 
appealed  to,  the  actions  and  habits  quoted  in  illustrations, 
shall  be  such  as  simple  English  readers  will  feel  and 
appreciate. 

Should  the  day  ever  come  when  the  Frobel  Society  is 
more  richly  endowed  with  funds,  a  portion  of  those  funds 
will  doubtless  be  devoted  to  aiding  such  publications,  for 
we  cannot  have  an  intelligent  appreciation  of  the  system 
without  full  exposition  of  its  principles.  The  literature 
of  the  subject  now  existing  in  English  is  poor  in  the 


*  Since  the  above  was  written  the  work  of  translation  has  gone  on 
more  successfully  than  I  ventured  here  to  anticipate.  The  Kinder- 
garten songs  I  have  already  spoken  of  (p.  9).  Miss  Gurney  has  trans- 
lated a  considerable  portion  of  Kohler's  practical  exposition  of  the 
system.  Miss  Alice  Christie  has  given  us  a  good  translation  of  Mde. 
Von  Mareuholte's  "Child  Nature,"  and  will  perhaps  execute  the  diffi- 
cult task  of  translating  her  larger  work  above-mentioned.  The  life  of 
Frobel  by  Miss  Shirreif,  a  mere  sketch,  is  founded  on  Hanschmann's 
work,  and  was  written  with  the  feeling  that  without  some  knowledge 
of  the  man  himself,  his  work  would  never  be  more  than  half  under- 
stood. 


APPENDIX  111 

extreme.  Nor  is  the  study  of  education  itself  made 
easily  accessible  to  ordinary  readers  among  us.*  We 
have  in  English  many  valuable  writings  on  education 
— lectures,  books,  essays  innumerable,  and  some  of  the 
highest  value ;  and  on  moral  subjects,  every  point  that 
the  educator  has  to  consider  has  doubtless  been  fully 
treated,  but  these  books  are  often  little  known  to  the 
class  of  readers  we  must  principally  bear  in  mind.  If 
we  wish  to  make  a  study  popular,  to  engage  a  largo 
number  of  persons  to  take  an  interest  in  it,  we  must 
smooth  the  material  difficulties  at  least  out  of  their  path, 
and  not  leave  them  to  seek  instruction  in  scattered 
writings,  the  immediate  application  of  which  to  their 
particular  branch  of  inquiry  will  not  always  be  ap- 
parent. For  instance,  most  writings  on  education  refer 
to  the  school  period,  and  although  principles  are  the 
same,  the  mind  unaccustomed  to  inquire  into  principles 
will  not  carry  back  to  infant  life  the  psychological 
facts  on  which  the  education  of  a  later  period  is  founded. 
Still  less  will  it  be  felt  at  once,  how  much  more  im- 
portant in  an  educational  point  of  view  is  the  period  all 
such  works  ignore  than  the  period  they  are  exclusively 
occupied  with. 

This  fact,  recognised  in  principle   by  philosophical 


*  Now  that  the  subject  of  education  is  taken  up  seriously  by  the 
University  of  Cambridge,  the  study  of  education  will  assume  quite  a 
new  aspect,  and  will  be  facilitated  by  books  and  lectures  on  all  the 
subjects  connected  with  it,  apart  from  the  direct  work  of  the  Teachers' 
Training  and  Registration  Society,  whose  college  in  London  was  opened 
two  years  ago,  and  of  the  excellent  lectures  in  connection  with  the 
College  of  Preceptors  who  set  the  first  example  in  this  direction.  At 
Edinburgh  and  at  St  Andrews  the  subject  of  education  has  also  been 
taken  up. 


112 


APPENDIX 


writers,  is  brought  out  clearly  and  in  a  practical  form 
by  Frobel  and  his  school  only;  and  therefore  must  these 
German  writings  be  rendered  easily  accessible  to  English 
readers,  if  we  wish  their  principle  to  exercise  any  wide 
influence  over  the  English  public. 


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